The constitutional right to be a parent

---

(from an article published in The Liberator)

From Dave Usher
Thanks to Murray Steinberg for sharing these with us.

U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

Our legal minds will put the cites below to good use. Please feel free to share them with your attorney.

For future reference, these are being added to the ACFC legal cites page. -ACFC

Loss of First Amendment Freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury. Though First Amendment rights are not absolute, they may be curtailed only by interests of vital importance, the burden of proving which rests on the government. Elrod v. Burns, 96 S.Ct. 2673; 427 U.S. 347, (1976).

The United States Supreme Court noted that a parent's right to "the companionship, care, custody and management of his or her children" is an interest "far more precious" than any property right. May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 533; 73 S.Ct. 840, 843, (1952).

The Court (U.S. Supreme Court) stressed, "the parent-child relationship is an important interest that undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection." A parent's interest in the companionship, care, custody and management of his or her children rises to a constitutionally secured right, given the centrality of family life as the focus for personal meaning and responsibility. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651; 92 S.Ct. 1208, (1972)

The U.S. Supreme Court implied that "a (once) married father who is separated or divorced from a mother and is no longer living with his child" could not constitutionally be treated differently from a currently married father living with his child. Quilloin v. Walcott, 98 S.Ct. 549; 434 U.S. 246, 255-56, (1978)

Law and court procedures that are "fair on their faces" but administered "with an evil eye or a heavy hand" was discriminatory and violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, (1886)

The Constitution also protects "the individual interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters." Federal Courts (and State Courts), under Griswold can protect, under the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" phrase of the Declaration of Independence, the right of a man to enjoy the mutual care, company, love and affection of his children, and this cannot be taken away from him without due process of law. There is a family right to privacy which the state cannot invade or it becomes actionable for civil rights damages. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, (1965)

Parent's right to custody of child is a right encompassed within protection of this amendment which may not be interfered with under guise of protection public interest by legislative action which is arbitrary or without reasonable relation to some purpose within competency of state to effect. Reynold v. Baby Fold, Inc., 369 NE 2d 858; 68 Ill 2d 419, appeal dismissed 98 S.Ct. 1598, 435 U.S. 963, Il, (1977)

Parent's rights have been recognized as being "essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free man." Meyer v. Nebraska, 92 S.Ct. 1208, (1972)

Reality of private biases and possible injury they might inflict were impermissible considerations under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Palmore v. Sidoti, 104 S.Ct. 1879; 466 U.S. 429

Legislative classifications which distributes benefits and burdens on the basis of gender carry the inherent risk of reinforcing stereotypes about the proper place of women and their need for special protection; thus, even statutes purportedly designed to compensate for and ameliorate the effects of past discrimination against women must be carefully tailored... the state cannot be permitted to classify on the basis of sex. Orr v. Orr, 99 S.Ct. 1102; 4340 U.S. 268 (1979)

The United States Supreme Court held that the "old notion" that "generally it is the man's primary responsibility to provide a home and its essentials" can no longer justify a statute that discriminates on the basis of sex. No longer is the female destined solely for the homes and the rearing of the family, and only the male for the marketplace and the world of ideas. Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U.S. 7, 10; 95 S.Ct. 1373, 1376 (1975)

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that severance in the parent-child relationship caused by the state occur only with rigorous protections for individual liberty interests at stake. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205: U.S. Ct. App. 7th Cir. WI., (1984)

COMPELLING STATE INTEREST

The following Supreme Court decisions were cited in a published opinion by Chief judge Norman K. Moon of Court of Appeals of Virginia June 3, 1997 in the case Williams and Williams v. Williams and Williams 24 Va. App. 778; 485 S.E. 2d 651 (June 3, 1997)

Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain vital interest in preventing irretrievable destruction of their family life; if anything, persons faced with forced dissolution of their parental rights have more critical need for procedural protections than do those resisting state intervention into ongoing family affairs. The Supreme Court noted its "historical recognition that freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." Santosky v. Kramer, 102 S.Ct. 1388; 455 U.S. 745, (1982).

In applying the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court has held that "[w]here certain fundamental rights are involved... regulation limiting these rights may be justified only by a 'compelling state interest' ...and ...legislative enactments must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake. State interference with a fundamental right must by justified by a "compelling state interest." Roe v. Wade. 410 U.S. 113, 155 ; 93 S.Ct. 705; 35 L Ed 2d 147, (1973)

State's power to legislate, adjudicate and administer all aspects of family law, including determinations of custodial and visitation rights, is subject to scrutiny by federal judiciary within reach of due process and/or equal protection clause of 14th Amendment... fourteenth Amendment applied to states through specific rights contained in the first eight amendments of the Constitution which declares fundamental personal rights... Fourteenth Amendment encompasses and applied to states those pre-existing fundamental rights recognized by the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment acknowledged the prior existence of fundamental rights with it: " The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. "The United States Supreme Court in a long line of decisions, has recognized that matters involving marriage, procreation, and the parent-child relationship are among those fundamental "liberty" interests protected by the Constitution. Thus, the decision in Roe v. Wade, as recently described by the Supreme Court as founded on the "Constitutional underpinning of... a recognition that the "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment includes not only the freedoms explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but also a freedom of personal choice in certain matters of marriage and family life."

While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed [by the Fourteenth Amendment] ... Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923).

In addition to recognizing as a fundamental liberty interest the right of parents to raise their children, the Supreme Court has also established that the Constitution's guarantee to fundamental privacy rights also embodies a fundamental right to parental autonomy in child rearing. The Court acknowledged a "private realm of family life which the state cannot enter." Prince v. Massachusetts, 3210 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431-U.S. 494 (1977)

The Supreme Court has clearly established that to constitute a compelling interest, state interference with a parent's right to raise his or her child must be for the purpose of protecting the child's health or welfare. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 230 (1972)

Father enjoys the right to associate with his children which is guaranteed by this amendment (First) as incorporated in Amendment 14, or which is embodied in the concept of "liberty" as that word is used in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Mabra v. Schmidt, 356 F Supp 620: D.C., WI (1973)

SUPPORTING FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT DECISIONS

The rights of parents to care, custody and nurture of their children is of such character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions, and such right is a fundamental right protected by this amendment (First) and Amendments 5, 9, and 14. Doe v. Irwin , 440 F Supp 1247; U.S.D.C. of Michigan, (1985)

Parent's interest in custody of her children is a liberty interest which has received considerable constitutional protection; a parent who is deprived of custody of his or her child, even though temporarily, suffers thereby grievous loss and such loss deserves extensive due process protection. In the Interest of Cooper, 621 P 2d 437: 5 Kansas App Div 2d 584, (1980)

A parent's right to the preservation of his relationship with his child derives from the fact that the parent's achievement of a rich and rewarding life is likely to depend significantly on his ability to participate in the rearing of his children. A child's corresponding right to protection from interference in the relationship derives from the psychic importance to him of being raised by a loving, responsible, reliable adult. Franz v. U.S., 707 F 2d 582, 58-95-599; U.S. Ct. App. (1983)

The liberty interest of the family encompasses an interest in retaining custody of one's children and, thus a state may not interfere with a parent's custodial rights absent due process protections. Langton v. Maloney, 527 F Supp 538, D.C. Conn. (1981)

A parent's right to the custody of his or her children is an element of "liberty" guaranteed by the 5th Amendment and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Matter of Gentry, 369 NW 2d 889, MI App. Div. (1983)

The parent-child relationship is a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205, 1242-45; U.S. Ct. App 7th Cir. WI.

No bond is more precious and non should be more zealously protected by the law as the bond between parent and child. Carson v. Elrod, 411 F Supp 645, 649; DC E.D. VA (1976)

The non-custodial divorced parent has no way to implement the constitutionally protected right to maintain a parental relationship with his child except through visitation. To acknowledge the protected status of the relationship as the majority does, and yet deny protection under Title 42 USC Section 1983, to visitation, which is the exclusive means of effecting that right, is to negate the right completely. Wise v. Bravo, 666 F 2d 1328, (1981)

The rights of parents to parent-child relationships are recognized and upheld. Fantony v. Fantony, 122 A 2d 593, (1956); Brennan v. Brennan, 454 A 2d 901, (1982)

U.S. Supreme Court

It would seem that the Constitution is violated more than it is honored in matters involving domestic relations. -AFC

ROE v. WADE, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), 410 U.S. 113

ROE ET AL. v. WADE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF DALLAS COUNTY, APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS No. 70-18.

Argued December 13, 1971 Reargued October 11, 1972, Decided January 22, 1973

Where certain "fundamental rights" are involved, the Court has held that regulation limiting these rights may be justified only by a "compelling state interest," Kramer v. Union Free School District, 395 U.S. 621, 627 (1969); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 634 (1969), Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 406 (1963), and that legislative enactments must be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S., at 485; Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 508 (1964); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 307-308 (1940); see [410 U.S. 113, 156] Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S., at 460, 463-464 (WHITE, J., concurring in result)....

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring. ...Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12; Griswold v. Connecticut, supra; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra; Meyer v. Nebraska, supra. See also Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541.

As recently as last Term, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453, we recognized "the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person [410 U.S. 113, 170]....

---

U.S. Supreme Court

SANTOSKY v. KRAMER, 455 U.S. 745 (1982)

455 U.S. 745

SANTOSKY ET AL. v. KRAMER, COMMISSIONER, ULSTER COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE APPELLATE DIVISION, SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, THIRD JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.

No. 80-5889. Argued November 10, 1981. Decided March 24, 1982

In Lassiter.... The absence of dispute reflected this Court's historical recognition that freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255 (1978); Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. 816, 845 (1977); Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 499 (1977) (plurality opinion); Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632, 639-640 (1974); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651-652 (1972); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-535 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923)....

---

U.S. Supreme Court

HARRIS v. McRAE, 448 U.S. 297 (1980)

448 U.S. 297

HARRIS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES v. McRAE ET AL.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

No. 79-1268. Argued April 21, 1980. Decided June 30, 1980.

...It is well settled that, quite apart from the guarantee of equal protection, if a law "impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly secured by the Constitution [it] is presumptively unconstitutional." Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 76 (plurality opinion). Accordingly, before turning to the equal protection issue in this case, we examine whether the Hyde Amendment violates any substantive rights secured by the Constitution....

---

U.S. Supreme Court

COOPER v. AARON, 358 U.S. 1 (1958)

358 U.S. 1

COOPER ET AL., MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE LITTLE ROCK,

ARKANSAS, INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, ET AL. v. AARON ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

Fn No. 1. Argued September 11, 1958. Decided September 12, 1958. Opinion announced September 29, 1958.

...Article VI of the Constitution makes the Constitution the "supreme Law of the Land." In 1803, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for a unanimous Court, referring to the Constitution as "the fundamental and paramount law of the nation," declared in the notable case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177, that "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." This decision declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system. It follows that the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by this Court in the Brown case is the supreme law of the land, and Art. VI of the Constitution makes it of binding effect on the States "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Every state legislator and executive and judicial officer is solemnly committed by oath taken pursuant to Art. VI, cl. 3, "to support this Constitution." Chief Justice Taney, speaking for a unanimous Court in 1859, said that this requirement reflected the framers' "anxiety to preserve it [the Constitution] in full force, in all its powers, and to guard against resistance to or evasion of its authority, on the part of a State . . . ."

---

Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 506, 524.

No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the Constitution without violating his undertaking to support it. Chief Justice Marshall spoke for a unanimous Court in saying that: "If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery . . . ." United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch 115, 136. A Governor who asserts a [358 U.S. 1, 19] power to nullify a federal court order is similarly restrained. If he had such power, said Chief Justice Hughes, in 1932, also for a unanimous Court, "it is manifest that the fiat of a state Governor, and not the Constitution of the United States, would be the supreme law of the land; that the restrictions of the Federal Constitution upon the exercise of state power would be but impotent phrases . . . ." Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 397-398....

We have forwarded these excerpts from Sup. Ct. decisions to our big list for your information.

The American Coalition for Fathers and Children
For Membership information call 1-800-978-DADS, or see ACFC's homepage at: http://www.acfc.org

American Fathers Coalition - 2000 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Ste. 148
Washington, D.C. 20006 1-800-978-DADS (3237) afc@capaccess.org http://www.erols.com/afc
Subject: On Fundamental Rights & Mocking The Constitution

---

In condensing the collection of decisions, it came to me that we are obsessed with the rights of the individual, while at the same time forgetting that one person's rights becomes other people's burden. Yet, all of the intelligent and clever legal and constitutional arguments that are being made have one underlying concern. They are made to demonstrate the presence or absence of the validity that one's right's can be made to be inferior to another one's. At the base of all of this is that no-one exists in isolation. We all are parts (or at least should be) of systems that themselves are parts of levels in a hierarchy of systems comprising civilization. The very foundation of the whole hierarchy of civilization is the group of social systems made up by these systems: husband-wife; parent-child; sibling-sibling; the family comprised of all of them; and, last but not least, the system of the extended family.

Some have recognized that and the one very profound truth arising out that fact: any system is greater than the sum of its parts, but only then if all of the parts interleave, communicate, mesh and function well with one another. All of these clever arguments ignore one important aspect. That is the obligations of an individual to the social systems of which he is a member. Thereby we ignore the needs and rights of all systems within society, because to demand one's rights requires that someone else is obliged to grant them.

By ignoring obligations, each entity will feel entitled to enforce its rights, if necessary, to the extent that it will rob others of theirs. What we have then is not a well-functioning society anymore that is better than the sum of its parts, but rather a conglomerate of entities, or better yet, a mob - at worst, the end of civilization as we know it. It appears that the best legal minds have not come to terms with that truth, or else they would not be so terribly confused as appears to be the case in the bewildering array of judgments relating to the basic social system of society: the family.

Would it be totally unrealistic to ask our legal minds to consider not only whether the state might have rights that are superior to those of the individual, but to think of the family unit in terms of a legal entity that has rights as well - with obligations and rights in relation to both, all of its members and the state? Would it be totally strange to ask our legislators to consider addressing the rights and liberties of the family and, in connection with that, the obligations that an individual has toward the family and the state?

Consider what would happen if we were to build the only one of the Ten Commandments that contains a promise as a constraint into constitutional rights: "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Why are we surprised and dismayed that we can't do well without it? Are we truly that smart that we can afford to ignore the wisdom that civilization lived by for thousands of years, and that we can afford to eradicate thousands of years of cultural heritage within the space of a little more than one generation? —F4L

---

Additional reading:

• The Charter Revolution & The Court Party

• Seizing children — a tactic for the destruction of the family and to attain state-control of the population

  Throughout history, rampant child apprehensions and state-ownership of children went hand-in-hand with totalitarian regimes and tyrannies.

  Antiquity — The apprehension of children – boys – in antiquity

  20th Century — Evolution of the Hitler Youth

  ...in a series of coldly and shrewdly calculated moves, radical extremists usurped the youth movement that was very much splintered along political and religious ideological lines and consolidated it into a unified and rigorously controlled sector of the German population. The slogan that motivated the Nazi leaders was an adaptation of a slogan attributed to Napoleon "Who controls the youths controls the future!" (Wer die Jugend hat, hat die Zukunft), although its origins go back to Socrates (whom Plato, in Republic, has offer this advice to philosopher kings: "Take all the children from their parents and rid the city of adults."), and, as the history of Ancient Greece shows with respect to Sparta, even farther back in antiquity.

  Modern Times — Big Sister Is Watching

  First they came for the fathers, then for the mothers, and now for both parents in intact families. In the end all children will be in the care, custody and control of the State.

  An epidemic of state-sponsored kidnapping feeds a tyrannical system hungry for revenues. Child Protective Services and Children's Aid Societies systematically and increasingly often rob children from their parents. Kafkaesque chicaneries that the targeted families find impossible to comply with are the tools used to keep the revenues rolling in. Many families don't survive the ordeals that they are being subjected to by any given CPS or CAS.
  (Full Story)

• Feminism For Male College Students — A Short Guide to the Truth, by Angry Harry (Off-Site)

How to End Father-Absence When Divorce is Neccesary

Barack Obama Father's Day reply - INVOLUNTARY fatherlessness



How to End Father-Absence When Divorce is Neccesary

While I do not completely agree with some David's political points or his solutions to the problem, he makes a wonderfully articulate argument clearly highlighting the problems and outright abuses in the national family legal system. I particularly would like to draw readers to focus on Davids summary of the problems and I would like to ask the judiciary what counter measures have they built in to their practices and procedures to deal with these abuses... As far as I can see they have done nothing even though the problems are screaming at our society!

Particularly:

1. If a mother wants to force a change to custody she files a motion to say things are not going well even when they are... the court automatically grants a hearing and mediation service is mandated to meet the couple prior to the hearing. On most occasions the court mediator does not look at the litigants court record, the motion 'For' or the motion 'Against' a change in custody and visitation [as in my case - complaint filed Dr David Karp and his boss, Alameda County Court Mediation Services, Rene C Davidson Court House]. The mediator after failing to read any of the case details hasthe gall to recommend a full on custody evaluation based on a few carefully choreographed tears by mother (likely scripted by her attorney, her law partner secret boyfriend and her therapist friends) in mandated mediation session. Mediator now writes a report recommending full custody evaluation which the Judge automatically stamps 9 times out of 1o in a two minute in to the hearing. This is a quite often a $50,000 decision in CA court system and the decision likely has absolutely no basis for being granted even though the mediator has 4 hours per case to look in to the merits of what is being requested and why. This step is the first blatant violation of the fathers rights since two things now happen and a warning to the father is now on the loosing slippery slope. The fact that a hearing has been granted, likely for absolutely no just cause (the supposed test for a motion to find its way in the court calendar) means mother now has a real 'game on' to pretend current situation is not working - the facts that the evaluation was granted automatically means that the judge will assume that the couple is not getting on which guarantees that the existing Joint custody will not be prevail or be granted because judges historically refuse joint custody when parents do not explicitly cooperate with each other. This directly stated in the Book: Solomons Sword; A practical guide to conducting Child Custody Evaluations. Its now almost game over for the father and he did not have to do or say anything! In fact you may have as just send your old cat in to the custody mediation session because nothing you will say counts for anything and would have made no difference to the outcome being sort by moving party! The system decided the end game for father with out him being able to do anything to stop the outcome from transpiring! Its a rigged system! The father is now on the slippery slope to loosing more and more rights to his children because a mediator did not do his job.

Why you may ask do they they allow this? I can only conclude this is for financial reasons since the more times he the mediator sleeps at the wheel the more times a father is screwed over and the court and the leaches that feed of the system make more money. If this traffic controller was diligent and only allowed the outright blatant abuse cases through then less parents and children would be screwed by the system. As is stands now - the fact that they don't even read the court record or motions for and after tells you that they want as much to go through the courts as possible with out any Quality control! The father stands no chance to have the outcome forced on him every time!

2. The other issue - is what have the courts done to stop baseless allegations destroying a parents rights... Right now - the system is unfortunately assumes, despite judges denying this - You are Guilty until proven innocent... The problem for a father or mother (the non moving party) is proving yourself innocent of baseless allegations is virtually impossible and by the time you do you will already be a sub class parent with little access to your kids. For example - any bulldog attorney fighting a father that seeks equal parenting rights to his kids is likely to invoke the all to easily Abuse card. Liars or attorneys learn this one early on because it makes them a ton of money. All they do is go down a list and accuse one said decent, dedicated, upstanding, loyal, loving father to being an axe murderer, a child beater / abuser, an alcoholic, a danger to the ex and all of society, a growing danger to the rest of humanity because he is not yet over the divorce or has feelings for Ex... or a combination thereof ;-) Now these allegations are made with out any proof other than mothers hearsay...for example... she may quote.... "yes and he was drunk and he came at me with a light Sabre, yes the Green kind that he stole from our Sons weapons and tank draw, yes and it nearly took my ear off, Johny and Maria's arms and at the same time he was gulping a 5 litre bottle of Jack Daniels. Yes - he was like Darth Vador himself. I though we were all going to turn in to shish-kebab....Yes - its so bad and I don't know what to do. If I take the sabre off him he goes to the toy shop and forces our son to buy him another"... If the mother / liar is really good she will sit down with her therapists and school teachers and create an agreement reality which will eventually get fed back to therapists down the way... she will say to her community ..... "yes - he's an alcoholic and he tried to split johnny in two with the light saber last night!" And all along - the father knows nothing - he is just doing what he has always has done - is being the great stand up father while the mother is shagging her best friends husband and going nuts with guilt and shame and self loathing and trying to make her life work by removing the father so she no longer needs to look at his potentially judgmental looks!! For the father now - he gets to go on all sorts of wonderful courses to prove his innocence, Alcohol assessment (at his expense), light Saber anonymous (at his expense) , Axe murder treatment center (at his expense) ran by the court mediators brother, anger treatment (at his expense) because quite clearly the fathers problem is he is angry with the mother - its not that he is angry with the system or being abused by the courts and that he is frustrated with having his constitutional rights ignored! Now if the father is a good father he can see his kids when he has done with all of these wonderful programs. If he objects and points out no basis, no facts, decision based on purgered data - hearsay - rigged system - then he is a bad father and he must not deserve to be with his kids... (like me). So the good father sucks up to being bullied by the ex and now the kangaroo court system if he wants to have a lesser of a relationship with his kids! And you thought the witch test was outdated - thats the one where you are lashed to a chair and if you stay under water you are innocent and if you float you are guilty! Yep - thats where we still are in this new milenia - and you thought this was the modern age! Enough of my rant... lets see what the gifted David Usher says about our abortion of family law:

June 13, 2005

---

by David R. Usher

---

Judges, lawyers, psychologists, feminists, and men’s rights activists have been at loggerheads for as long as we can remember over what to do about children of divorce. Liberals want to pander to it and fund more divorce. Most conservatives say all the right words, but usually end up doing what the liberals want for lack of any real “marriage movement” leadership.

Both parties have propelled legislation designed to expedite the divorce process, as if it could somehow make “no-fault” divorce a painless, socially-productive institution. Expedited procedures include a filing method in which a parent “claims custody” at the time of filing, and then the other spouse is presumed to be the “noncustodial parent”. The subsequent child support order is also expedited via tables presuming an amount, and processes discourage tailoring the support order to the real needs of the parents involved. This has had the effect of increasing the numbers of children of divorce, and ensuring that the vast majority of them lose their fathers in divorce.

The custody problem and the tremendous problem of father-absence exists because we have been asking the wrong question all along: How do we split the children in half?

Such Solomonic acrobatics have propelled many pro-child activists and states to adopt policies attempting to instill various forms of joint custody as an option to the court. For a variety of reasons, these are perceived not to work, or may in practice be facile on a limited basis. So courts often settle for a primary custody order, sometimes glazed with the words “joint legal custody” or “joint physical custody” to make everyone feel better. This is the dysfunctional model that leaves the majority of children fatherless by fiat.

I have spent fifteen years studying the courts, political systems, and the various interest groups involved in the gender war, which is longest-running war in American history. I have done most of my work pro-se successfully, and played a substantial role in passage of many statutory reforms to divorce law in Missouri.

The purpose of this article is to set forth the concept for a new custody model called “Time-Shift Shared Parenting” (TSSP),which addresses the major, chronic problems of divorce: such as litigiousness, dissatisfaction, and unnecessary abridgement of parental and children’s fundamental constitutional rights.

TSSP involves concepts based on a large body of credible reports and studies too extensive to cite in the context of this article. Readers studied in these issues should already know the citations without me stating them. Therefore, I am leaving the citations and their discussion for future articles and papers by myself and others.

We know we can never make divorce a functional equivalent to marriage when children are involved. But we certainly have a moral, ethical, and legal duty to ensure that we never again intentionally reject good fathers or deny children half the love, guidance, discipline, and experience available to them.

Our failure to develop and adopt policies which prevent automated father-absence when divorce takes place is why father-absence continues to be the greatest problem we face.

Readers are reminded that father-absence is the single primary predictor of a tremendously expensive array of intractable social problems including teen pregnancy, teen truancy, teen violence and crime, teen drug abuse, serious child psychological problems, poor school performance, poor integration into adulthood, paternal suicide, personal bankruptcy, and child support noncompliance. These truths are now well known as established in many credible works published over the past decade.

The Problem

First, I will briefly itemize the primary factors why joint custody has not become the norm:

• It is unusual for parents to cooperate in divorce. Judges historically refuse to order joint custody when parents do not explicitly cooperate with each other. A divorce usually means there is disagreement in the marriage to begin with, and he fundamental structure of contemporary divorce process substantially exacerbates disagreement by its very design. When divorces become combative, judges tend to maintain status-quo of the present arrangement, and apply force against the parent objecting to the divorce. In combative divorces, the contesting spouse is objecting to a wrong created by the process itself, assuaged by the court, so the objection is perceived as a criticism of the court. This has the effect of placing the objecting spouse in an oppositional position with the judge, who reacts by compounding the wrong instead of correcting it This is well known to unethical divorce attorneys, who often instruct custodial petitioners how to use passive-aggressive methods to foster self-aggrandizing disagreement which inures to their benefit.

• Child custody is strongly associated with maximum child-support and alimony income. Perverse pecuniary desires commonly underlay custody disagreement. One parent (usually the mother) wants money and the home. The father is horrified when he finds out that he is the next “planned parentectomy”. The father is deeply insulted at the idea that he must pay dearly for the luxury of being thrown out of family, home, and society itself. Only the most irresponsible father would rather pay child support than be a father, which is why so many fathers fight these custody battles.

• Custody battles arising from the deeply-flawed design of the existing policy framework are frankly inhumane. They are similar to dog fights. We know what most parents will do when you take away their children. The present “winner take all” structure of the divorce process ensures a dog fight (unless parents are remarkably mature and cooperative, or the losing parent is irresponsible and does not care about his or her children). Many families are left financially devastated after spending all their resources on custody battles, and many unethical family law attorneys have the incomes to prove it. This is one reason why a majority of personal bankruptcies are preceded by a divorce.

• False child abuse or domestic violence allegations made by the petitioner have become standard strategic tactics in divorce, particularly where child custody is involved. False child abuse allegations were more popular in the 1980’s, until judges realized most of them are false. During the 1990’s, feminists discovered it was more fruitful to use false spouse abuse allegations, because they don’t involve programming a child to do the bidding of the divorcing spouse. Using manufactured data and fear, feminists invented the “Violence Against Women” Act, which provided federal funding to assure feminist conquests in the vast majority of divorces. Like the ACLU, feminists running women’s abuse centers frantically work only one side of the issue without care for the realities of the situation. Judges do not have time to hear 95% of the cases that come before them. About 95% of clients do not have the $30,000 or more in cash needed to try a custody case, the $25,000 needed to disprove false allegations of spousal abuse. Any allegation of abuse against the father is enough to decide the custody issue, and make it quite difficult for fathers to even get parenting time, regardless of the absurdity of the allegations. In effect, family law courts leave 99 children fatherless to protect the one child who was actually abused in 100 cases.

• It is rare for parents to live in the same or adjacent school district, which is basically necessary for a 50/50 or similar joint custody arrangement to function from an educational perspective. Judges know that it is unlikely that parents will live close enough to each other for a period of years that a true 50-50 joint custody order could work from a spacial perspective. Historically, joint custody orders are made in approximately 15% of divorce cases and do not make a significant impact in the problem of father-absence. When joint custody is ordered. In the other 85% of cases, children lose a parent in divorce. No one can say that one of the parents is so flawed in 85% of divorces that their relationship with the children should be essentially terminated.

The Answer

TSSP ends nearly all the problems listed above. It creates a presumed custody order affirming the parental rights of both parents and creates a landscape not fertile for predatory chessboard litigation. It meets the needs of children as closely as is possible in divorce, and removes perverse incentives so evident in existing policy, while allowing for proper handling of situations involving real child abuse or neglect.

TSSP involves relatively straightforward concepts, as follows:

• When a divorce decree is issued, a primary custodian is named, with the traditional Siegenthaler ( or other reasonable parenting time plan) given to the other parent, with as many decision-making authorities granted to the other parent as possible.

• An automatic custody reversal is built into the original order, naming a date certain on which the custody order will be reversed to the other parent. The date is calculated by finding the half-way point in time between the date of the hearing and the date of emancipation of the children. For most children, the custody reversal will take place in their early teen years.

• Where children are close siblings, with age differential of four years difference or less, the dates of emancipation will be averaged such that the custody reversal for both children takes place simultaneously.

• Divorcing couples may agree to more than one custody reversal, such as every four years, so long as it is by a consent decree, and equal custody time is ordered for both parents. In cases where parents cannot agree, or a case is litigated or heard, the default order will be for one custody reversal.

• TSSP must be a mandatory policy and characterized in statute as a constitutionally-protected parental right, with only three exceptions: 1) Where a parent is found to be an unfit parent; 2) where a parent voluntarily (and without duress) requests to be a non-custodial parent. In this case, a sole custody order with maximum child support and alimony should be ordered; and 3) where both parties file for divorce with a consent decree disposing of all matters contained in the initial filing for dissolution.

• Congress must require states to enact TSSP legislation, or face stiff penalties in funding for social services and child support collections entitlements. This is a wise and deeply profound shift in federal policy. The vast majority of child psychological and educational problems, child abuse, and child support collections problems exist because we have actually preferred aborting fathers and collecting child support. States that wish to continue irresponsible creation of father-absence must be held accountable for their actions and bear the costs for their actions.

Legislation Needed To Effect This Tested Model

According to Daniel Lee, President of Child’s Best Interest in Tennessee, the concept of time-shifting was introduced and debated in Tennessee shared parenting bills as early as 2003, and is pending in one today. These legislative proposals rotate primary decision-making once prior to the child reaching majority, or in long-term multi-year blocks (such as 4).

Even before being passed into law, this rotating arrangement was ordered in a number of cases, which were all upheld on appeal. No problems surfaced from these rulings, and yet a later appellate opinion put a stop to it. This indicates the concept must be put into statutory law.

Daniel further states "Parents equally sharing raising their child comes from constitutional law. The strict-scrutiny test must be applied under the U.S. and state Constitutions before fundamental parental rights can be diminished or removed. Divorce is not an exception to this long-held tenet. This test prevents parents from being arbitrarily placed into widely-disparate classes as permanent custodial and non-custodial parents, precognized by sex, and without a showing that a parent is unfit or an immediate threat to the child.

At law, courts should never have allowed the present custodial arrangements. They are plainly unconstitutional. An overwhelming body of studies and anectodal reports prove the current system is very damaging to children and parents. TSSP ends this serious anti-family due-process error commonly practiced in all state family law courts.

Related Pro-Marriage Improvements of Law

The success of TSSP requires refocusing of certain federal and state laws. There are two major areas of federal and state policy which drive predatory divorce. The high-level view of the changes needed is as follows:

• Traditional child support models such as the Williams (income shares) model must be abandoned. The numerical bases of these models are known to be seriously flawed, as proven by Dr. Sanford Braver in “Divorced Dads – Shattering the Myths”. They are based on sole custody models and do not take into account the living expenses of the non-custodial parent or the taxes they pay that the mother does not. Alimony must be removed from these tables. New tables must be created, with the amount of support based on actual periodic income of the obligor, expressed as a percentage of actual income, and reconciled annually against federal income tax earnings. There is no rational basis for holding divorced parents to an arbitrarily high and inflexible standard of support for children in comparison to their married counterparts. There are strong economic arguments for this shift in policy. Divorce forms a very large controlled sub-economy in which parents are not free to make wise decisions to change jobs, weather downturns when market sectors collapse, or improve their job skills when similar employment no longer exists. We just call them deadbeats. My previous MND article “Divorce and Child Support Are Eviscerating Military Recruitment”, also available on Eagle Forum and the American Conservative Union BattleLine Online, points out that child support policy is unquestionably interfering with national defense and security. A very large number of men are no longer free to be patriotic. They have been drafted into forced economic servitude to a nanny state. We must never again treat divorced men differently than married men. They should pay a percentage of their incomes, not contrived fixed-sums of money ordered by welfare-state judges.

• Child abuse policy must be reformed to require at least minimal adherence to standards of “best evidence” and proof when child abuse or domestic violence is alleged. The purpose of the court is to prove abuse took place, not to merely validate the possibility that it could have happened. Congress must revisit the Carter-Mondale act of 1974, and replace it with a program designed to treat child abuse as being a simple law enforcement matter, not the exercise in entitled Freudian tea-leaf reading that it presently is.

• Federal Domestic Violence code must be rewritten entirely. The Violence Against Women Act, which is abused to fund a variety of other radical feminist enterprises including abortion and lesbian rights, must be abandoned and replaced with a gender-neutral Family Violence Act. This new act must require actual proof of abuse before penalizing an individual.

• Revisions to child abuse and domestic violence laws must include serious penalties for making false allegations of abuse. We did not let Jennifer Wilbanks get away with pretending rape and abuse at the substantial financial expense of government. We must now stop letting millions of individuals abuse the exact same system in divorce. Domestic Violence advocates conveniently pretend that penalties would make it too risky to report actual abuse. We know from much experience that false abuse allegations are relatively simple to spot, because there is no physical evidence whatsoever to support the allegations, and the evidence at hand indicates the allegations themselves are fundamentally not credible. Women’s abuse centers must be forced take their jobs seriously, pressing the real cases of abuse, and be penalized when they run amok spewing out baseless abuse allegations as the preferred predatory strategic weapon in feminist-driven divorce proceedings.

• State laws granting judges nearly unlimited decretal discretion must be ended. We do not allow any other kind of court unrestrained subjective largesse. Bar Associations have long argued that judges need extremely wide latitude so they can tailor each case adequately. History demonstrates that the abject lack of policy standards has resulted in a corrupt family courts system spewing out troubled fatherless children and unsupportable child support orders in approximately 75-85% of divorces, for no valid reason whatsoever. Divorce courts have become the swamp of no return for millions of Americans and innocent children. Divorce courts must be required to render their decisions against a clear, objective yardstick just like all other courts do. TSSP is a fundamental part of the yardstick.

What TSSP will accomplish

TSSP will deliver many badly-needed social benefits for children, and a variety of very substantial social and economic benefits for taxpayers and the general public.

TSSP will result in the following benefits:

• It will substantially reduce the tremendous problem of father-absence.
• We will see higher child support compliance rates. When families do not spend all their money protecting parental rights, there will be more money to pay child support with. States that enforce visitation orders discovered that child support compliance rates increased substantially. TSSP goes one step further – ensuring that visitation takes place, and parents do not give up being parents after divorce.
• Divorce-related violence and suicide will be reduced, perhaps substantially.
• We will see far fewer problems that children of divorce have. This, in turn, will reduce entitlement funding needs for the entire diaspora of federal and state social and crime enforcement programs, thus reducing deficits and pressure to raise taxes to balance the budget.
• We will see reductions in personal bankruptcy.
• We will see improved school performance, attendance, and cooperation by children. therapism, and use of Ritalin in schools will be reduced.

Other suggested policy transformations will enhance the above benefits.

Political Analysis: An Historic Conservative Pro-Family Political Opportunity

The benefits I have itemized comprise a very substantial body of items that all politicians should be falling all over each other to latch on to. Pro-family politics wins elections. This is because most voters know what is going on out there, and most voters are sick and tired of hearing the words “responsible fatherhood” being bandied about by politicians trying to figure out yet another sneaky way to fund the nanny welfare/child-support state.

The plethora of omnipresent problems caused by record levels of father-absence has cost the American taxpayer more than the national debt since 1963. This nanny-state has been increasingly treated as a reviled necessary evil that is never directly discussed in conventional politics.

Economic conservatives must pay particular attention to the fact that it is entirely possible to fight the ongoing war on terror on a balanced budget if we simply ensure that most children of divorce can have two parents actively involved in childrearing. TSSP, along with other developing Marriage Movement concepts, will make this entirely feasible.

Voters want politicians who will actually do things that will make their lives better, not wimps who pussyfoot around the issues. Republicans have been avoiding social issues like the plague because they watched Newt Gingrich get tarred and feathered for pushing orphanages and making a number of rather strident and well-intentioned, but sadly misdirected statements about his social policy ideas.

Read my lips: Newt had the right idea, but the wrong ideas. It put Republicans in control of Congress, but backfired when the details were found to be mistaken politically incorrect. The issue is as tractionable as ever. Just make sure you have the right goals before turning it into a party platform.

Therefore: I predict that the large majority of voters will respond very positively to those who adopt pro-family legislative and policy goals along the lines I am recommending.

The 2008 Elections

What could divorce and welfare have to do with the 2008 elections? It could easily become the tipping point.

The conventional Republican approach is this: politicians, the ACF, and other government agencies don false marriage-movement masks by pretending the “Responsible Fatherhood” slogan is just another word for “child support”. Democrats are more than happy to ring this bell too. The rest of America knows that money is just a bunch of green stuff, and that “Responsible Fatherhood” is a social function and a necessary social creation invented a couple of millennia ago, aborted in the latter half of the last century by government.

This is classic symbolism-over-substance. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of it. Their failure to deal with the issue is the one thing that could actually power a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Folks are not going to put up with endless crime, violence, starving kids, and wailing single mothers crying all over the major media outlets all day, while the war on terror is perceived to be leaving the poor behind..

The fact is this: Republicans are tragically weak on social policy, because they don’t have one (other than same-sex marriage). They simply do whatever the Democrats want to do. This is suicidal in the long term because it does not fix anything. It lets the myriad of problems falling out of epidemic father-absence grow and fester. Democrats can raucously blame all the problems on Republicans in 2008.

Mark my words: this is exactly what Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic party will do. If Republicans fail to let most Americans have what they want and need in the next three years, they might find themselves overrun by these hyper-emotional social issues.

If it weren’t for gay marriage in 2004, Democrats might well have won the last election. Republicans will be at increasing risk in the next few years, unless they step out with their own social policies that give the majority of American men and women what they want and need.

Political analysts should pay particular attention to the fact that about half the voting population is divorced or living in fatherless families. Many of those who are not divorced have a relative disemboweled by the system. These people have been there and lived it, and they don’t like it This is a tremendous voting block, not necessarily aligned by gender or age. Those who cater to this block of voters will win races. Those who ignore it, will lose.

Most divorced women I have interviewed would gladly give up their child support to get the government to stop disemboweling their new husband. Point: the most important aspect in divorce is not child support. Child support has the effect of destroying the economics of remarriage – and most women know this.

A strong political focus on making divorce less warlike and keeping family economics intact, with a primary focus on preserving parenthood, and an eye towards making remarriage (absent constant governmental manipulation) a reality for both men and women, will win many elections in the future.

The concept is this (for all the economic conservatives who are still finding their sealegs in social issues: We should view divorce like we view employment figures. Divorce should be handled as “frictional non-marriage”, with government supports provided during the interim, leaving marriage the most attractive economic model. When we do this, everything else will take care of itself. When viewed in this light, we immediately see that Moynihan was right when he pointed out that permanent welfare entitlements cause permanent non-marriage. Today, child support and alimony are the contemporary funding vehicle causing high divorce rates, high non-marriage and “live-in” rates, and low remarriage rates.

Those who ply antifamily politics in elections often do not do well. John Ashcroft tried to retain his Senate seat in 2000 to a dead man, by finally sending the Violence Against Women Act to the Senate floor. He thought this would get him the women’s vote (I know this is so because I spoke with his top aide). What it did was to alienate his conservative voter base. His constituency was not happy, and there were protests at his office over it). He lost the election.

I have witnessed many other local and state campaigns where the incumbent tried to play the “child support” card, either by launching a screeching child-support enforcement campaign or some sort of awful legislation sought by the National Organization of Women.

There have been many surprise upsets in these races because most voters simply are not that stupid. Here is why: Most women just want a decent marriage (or a decent second marriage). Few women vote “child support” as the litmus test. Most men hate the system that regularly replaces them with an extorted check. Moral: the votes aren’t there to support nanny state politics any more.

Pro-family politics are extremely salient in this day of boring cookie-cutter liberal vs. conservative politics-as-usual campaigns. Watch one and you have seen them all. Nobody stands out in the pack, and races are often won by a hair because of it.

Political Stumbling Blocks

• I anticipate great resistance by the Courts, Bar associations, Social Service agencies, and psychologists who make their living working divorce wars. We can expect this. I have done battle with the Bar before and won. Here is what will happen. They will spew reams of fear-laden anecdotal stories in support of keeping divorce a free-for-all. But their documentation won’t contain any credible citations of authorities to back their position up. This is because there aren’t any studies to support their style of doing business. They will try to fence the issue, and tell others it’s a matter of law and that policy-makers have no business making policy. But there will be many individual family law attorneys and judges who are sick of the system and will support it. Clue: go around the Bar, and talk to individual attorneys. If we stick to our goals and guns, we will win.

• Social Service Agencies will oppose this because they fear they will lose their jobs. This is partially true. State social service agencies have perhaps doubled the number of workers in the past decade, while divorce rates have remained static. The fact is this: we will not need bloated social service agencies when we have two parents actively invested in raising most children.

• I have an additional Marriage Movement policy plan, designed to transform courts and social service agencies to basically expect marital responsibility from spouses, and to encourage and help spouses to work through the normal problems and processes of marriage. This is a quantum shift from the present ideology, which tends to break up families to get more entitlement funding. These policies, in addition to TSSP, will keep social service agencies busy, for all the right reasons. This is a very large issue, which I will cover in a future article.

David R. Usher

---

David R. Usher is a Legislative Analyst for the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition.

Moms, courts share blame for absent fathers

Moms, courts share blame for absent fathers

Saturday, July 5, 2008 3:01 AM

E.J. Dionne declared Illinois Sen. Barack Obama "on target" on the issue of fatherlessness -- especially in the African-American family ("Obama was on target on Father's Day," Forum column, June 18). That seems right, as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough.

It is welcome, of course, to see both Obama and Dionne emphasize the importance of fathers in the lives of their children and the tragic consequences of fatherlessness. But Obama and Dionne merely allude to the shameful history of (sometimes well-intended) government programs that have had the effect of weakening families. Obama's Father's Day speech -- addressed, as it was, especially to the African-American community -- appropriately focused on the issue of personal responsibility. That is important. But it is also important to understand the social context in which individual choices are made.

It is a context in which fathers have been devalued or valued only as support for mothers -- usually, and most important in many people's eyes, economic support. Advertisers and sitcom writers who have no true wit or creativity cash in on the icon of the bumbling, incompetent, selfish, loutish father -- until recently without complaint. Family courts will stop at nothing to collect child support from the men they label "absent fathers" but do very little to protect a father's time with his children from an angry mother who sees no value in the father having any relationship with his children.

According to psychologists Joan Kelly and Judith Wallerstein, 50 percent of mothers "see no value in the father's continued contact with his children" after divorce (Surviving the Breakup, p. 125).

Researcher Sanford Braver notes that "40 percent of mothers reported that they had interfered with the noncustodial father's visitation on at least one occasion, to punish the ex-spouse ("Frequency of Visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1991)."

Research recently published by Ohio State University professor Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan and graduate student Elizabeth Cannon indicates the importance of mothers' actions and decisions in influencing the degree and nature of fathers' involvement with their children. "Mothers can be very encouraging to fathers, and open the gate to their involvement in child care, or be very critical, and close the gate. . . . This is the first real evidence that mothers, through their behavior, act as gatekeepers by either fostering or curtailing how much fathers take part in caring for their baby."

As Schoppe-Sullivan sums up, "Mothers are in the driver's seat." So, while we're in the process of making calls to personal responsibility, we must not call only fathers to task. We must also call mothers to task and condemn behavior that excludes or hampers fathers' involvement with their children. When a mother getting a divorce seeks sole custody, we should question the reasons for this attempt to exclude the father from any decision-making role with respect to the children.

And we must call domestic-relations and juvenile courts to task for too often failing to protect the relationship between a father and his children. I'll never forget listening to one of Franklin County's highly regarded former judges lecture a father: "You'll get two jobs; you'll get three jobs; you'll get four jobs. I don't care! But you will pay your child support." How, I wondered, could this man be a father to his children while holding down three or four jobs? But the judge was unconcerned. And the mother was under no order to contribute to the financial support of her children.

While we're noting the very real harms of fatherlessness in our society, especially to vulnerable populations, and excoriating those fathers who irresponsibly choose to be absent, we should not overlook those fathers who never had the opportunity to be a real father or who faced enormous barriers to do so. Fatherlessness is a multifaceted problem; solving it requires being on many targets, not just one.

DON HUBIN
Professor and chairman Department of Philosophy Ohio State University

Columbus

New Information in Jeremy Fraser Case Reinforces Need for “Jeremy’s Law” — Shared Parenting

New Information in Jeremy Fraser Case Reinforces Need for “Jeremy’s Law” — Shared Parenting

July 8th, 2008 by Ned Holstein, MD, MS

Salem, MA–We wrote last week about the case of 8-year-old Jeremy Fraser, whose mother Kristin LaBrie made international news after being charged with child endangerment for stopping the boy's life-saving cancer treatment while she had primary custody. To read more, click here.

We have since spoken at length with father Eric Fraser, who now has custody and who is preparing for Jeremy's likely death from leukemia. According to the doctors, Jeremy’s illness was curable until his mother allegedly delayed and obstructed his chemotherapy. Meanwhile, Eric was allegedly kept at arm’s length by Kristin’s accusations, aggressiveness and conflict-seeking behavior. Now it is too late: Jeremy’s outlook is near-hopeless.

The bottom line for me is that this child’s life would probably have been saved if Massachusetts had a shared parenting law.

Troubled parents are a fact of life. That’s where shared parenting comes in. When parents are less than perfect — which is most of the time – shared parenting allows each parent to be the child’s safeguard against failure by the other parent. By ordering sole custody to one parent in most cases, and giving the non-custodial parent only a few days per month with the child, the courts remove the child’s best protection against failure of the custodial parent – the other parent.

Jeremy’s plight is not at all unusual. The rates of child abuse and neglect are astronomical in single-parent households. The rates for single mothers, their boyfriends and their second husbands significantly exceed those of biological fathers. Many of these children would be protected if their biological dads were allowed more access to their children so they could monitor how their children were being treated.

The overall picture, based on our lengthy conversation with Fraser, is of the family court and the Department of Social Services (DSS — Massachusetts’ child protective agency) ignoring mountains of evidence of an unstable mother. This was so extreme that DSS and the courts switched custody of Karin LaBrie’s older son to his father (not Fraser) in 2000. So her parenting limitations were well known by the time of her subsequent divorce from Fraser. Yet she was awarded sole custody of Jeremy, with subsequent tragic results.

Fraser too is not without fault. This is exactly the kind of situation in which children most need shared parenting - so that each imperfect parent can keep an eye on the other.

Fraser claimed numerous instances of LaBrie's unstable behavior stretching from 2000 to their 2002 separation, the 2005 divorce, and to the present, many of which can be verified by court, police, and agency records. These allegedly included "endless" threats by LaBrie and LaBrie’s boyfriend to harm Eric Fraser, his family and new partner; physical confrontations; several domestic violence incidents between LaBrie and her boyfriend; drunken rages; scrapes with her landlord, and sustained efforts at parental alienation. At one point, Fraser's elderly parents were forced to get a restraining order against the boyfriend.

In 2000, police were allegedly called to the couple's home and were said to find LaBrie drunk and unable to care for baby Jeremy and the older son from LaBrie’s previous relationship. That is when the older boy was put in the custody of the first father. DSS investigated LaBrie twice in 2006 and investigated Fraser once in 2005 - the latter a case Fraser says he initiated when he observed bruises on his son. All of the investigations were closed without a finding. Fraser made several impassioned pleas for court intervention that were not answered.

The Eric Fraser we heard describes himself as a hardworking dad with 19 years of employment by UPS who went to great lengths to maintain the peace for the benefit of Jeremy. At times when relations got particularly rough, he withdrew from contact with Kristin and his son, feeling he had run out of options for keeping the peace, and holding no faith that the courts would intercede fairly – a common refrain from non-custodial fathers.

Massachusetts needs a shared parenting law to prevent this kind of tragedy. Let’s call it “Jeremy’s Law.”

Let us know what you think.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Shared Parenting

Liberty Medal for Courage Winner Writes Book about His Struggle to See His Daughter

Liberty Medal for Courage Winner Writes Book about His Struggle to See His Daughter

July 12th, 2008 by Glenn Sacks

"When my daughter, Danielle, was born, I easily could have been the happiest man in the world. At that time, I never could have imagined that she would one day be ripped out of my life and legally kept away from me...this book is a testament of my love for my beautiful little girl, Danielle, with whom I often daydream of meeting again."--Anthony Gallo, Liberty Medal for Courage winner and author of A Father's Right

Liberty Medal for Courage winner Anthony Gallo (pictured above with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani) has written a book about his struggle to see his daughter--A Father's Right. Gallo says:

In the summer of 2003 I was riding the subway home [when]...I witnessed a woman being slashed. This guy...slashed her across her face as she sat there, and ran off the train...I chased him and...held him until the police arrived, getting cut on my wrist, he had a knife in each hand...I was awarded by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and was awarded the NY Post Liberty Medal for Courage [and] was...on the John Walsh Show. But all this really meant nothing to me, it was my daughter that I held most important...

To learn more about the book, go to www.amazon.com here. Below, Anthony tells part of his story. He can be reached at fathersright@yahoo.com.

From Anthony Gallo, author of A Father's Right

"What you will not read in the newspapers is that for the last six years I have been fighting through the family court system to be part of my daughter's life. The discrimination, incompetence, and ignorance is just unacceptable. I have done everything asked of me. Child Protective Services did six investigations of the accusations against me, yet still my daughter has been kept from me.

"I am on my sixth Judge. I have attended Parenting Classes, Single Fathers Classes, Drug Tests, Therapists, Forensic investigations, and so much more. I waited in a room downtown Manhattan every week, for months, hoping to see my daughter, and did not, even with a court order.

"In the summer of 2003 I was riding the subway home from installing an alarm system (I do this for a living in Manhattan) riding the Q train at Atlantic Ave I witnessed a woman being slashed. This guy walked up to this woman that was dressed as a nurse and just slashed her across her face as she sat there, and ran off the train. I immediately reacted just making it off the train myself before the doors closed. I chased him and was able to restrain him, and held him until the police arrived, getting cut on my wrist, he had a knife in each hand.

"I was awarded by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and was awarded the NY Post Liberty Medal for Courage 2003, and was even a guest on the John Walsh Show. But all this really meant nothing to me, it was my daughter that I held most important. I have tried to contact many people about my case and all its faults. I like to call them 'Red Flags' that make people aware of abuse, against the system. The courts have been doing this for a long time yet, they still can't get it right, because most of them are 'Pay Check Workers' and are not there for the 'Best Interests Of The Children.'

"So with all this attention I received for my 'heroism,' I just thought someone would look into the false allegations that were keeping my daughter and I apart. But no one seemed to care for me once my story broke out. Not the Mayor, who once shook my hand and said 'Good Job Mr. Gallo,' not even my own city councilman.

"One morning I decided to return the awards, back to the city that I love so much. I guess the discrimination was just too much for me to look at the awards--I do not need an award to know the kind of person that I am.

"I went to One Police Plaza and told the officers in the front that I found this bag filled with awards and medals on the subway and thought I should bring them here. When the officers looked into the bag they were shocked that someone could forget this. They asked me for I. D. and of course I could not show them because the awards had my name on them, I just did not want to explain to them why I was returning my awards. I have not heard from anyone about this action that I took.

"I see my daughter weekly now for one hour, if I am lucky, and I must pay for this, or I cannot see her. I also pay child support. I do not know where she lives or how she is doing in school. We play monopoly in hope of building a relationship again, but dealing with 'Pay Check Workers' can be very frustrating.

"I had asked to show my daughter a tape of myself getting awarded on the John Walsh Show, I even allowed them to view the tape beforehand so they could see that it would be rewarding for my daughter, and she could see how people stood and cheered for me. I thought it would build some trust, after her not seeing me for years. I was told 'no!'

"I feel the media is so quick to do that story on the 'Dead Beat Dad' or to 'Amber Alert' a dad just ran off with his child, but you never hear about the father who has been struggling just to see his child, paying with his blood, sweat and tears just so that his daughter would know her father.

"I miss her so much and I cry everyday. She will know that her Dad was a fighter, and I hope that it will help her cope with life."

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Fathers' Rights/Noncustodial parents' rights, Heroism/Chivalry/Noble Acts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.