Home Recommended Products Contact Us
 
 
Home
Resources & Links
Fatherlessness Statistics
Child Support
Legal Resources
Search This Site
Bad Judges List
Free Templates
Restraining Orders
Judicial Abuse Stories
Father's Stories
Legal Help & Referrals
Constitutional Rights
Donate
Table of Contents
Terms & Conditions
 
 
Signup for Newsletter
 
E-mail:  
 
 
Search Site
 
 
 
 
 
 
Letter To Hillary Clinton
 

4/9/2005

 
 
Dear Senator Clinton,

Until recently I have never been an activist of any kind, other than by writing checks and having my company support causes. Now John Murtari is one of my heroes. He is peacefully demonstrating weekly in Syracuse, N.Y. for children's and fathers rights. This issue needs you attention immediately! I ask that you meet with him and look closely into the family courts. This is one on the biggest issues in the U.S. today with the divorce rate over 50%.

I have studied this problem for many months now and here is what I have learned:

The current family court system is doing damage to an entire generation of children. Judges hide behind the vague mantra "Best interests of the children", but it is really "best interests of the lawyers". The research is in, yet the family courts are basing their decisions today on research that is decades old (and was never scientifically valid), and on traditions that should have gone away with the Equal Rights Amendment. This does not reflect today's society and equal rights.

In fact it is already against the law, as up held by the supreme courts that fathers should have equal rights. Voters in Massachusetts were 85% in favor of equally parenting rights after divorce in a recent non-binding referendum.

Yet the higher court rulings are ignored daily by the state courts in virtually every case. The recent Bridget Marks case is only the latest in a series of complete judicial abuse, where a woman was found be the court to be an unfit mother, to have committed fraud and perjury and get still got custody of the children. Any man would have gotten a jail sentence for the exact behavior. As a loving father I want to, and will, see a PRESUMPTION of shared parenting become law and more importantly be enforced. Judges are literally out of control and the checks and balances our forefathers designed into the constitution have been subverted. Money is one powerful root cause of this.

To me the only question is when Share Parenting will come to the forefront. A huge ground swell is building with hundreds of web sites and fathers groups. Anything besides shared parenting presumption creates huge incentives for legal battles, which hurt children and families and drain their finances for the benefit of lawyers and indirectly judges. The current system has become a distorted mess over the last thirty years. Effectively the family courts are still living in the 1950s.

Imagine if you had to run for election with the presumption you would lose, and therefore (because of that presumption) your opponent got all the money from your fundraising efforts! Would that not be outrageous? This is exactly what is happening in family courts today , and the lawyers love this because it generates excessive legal fees, more conflict and drains the estates of families at their most vulnerable time. Mothers are set up to get the majority of the estate and legal and physical custody of the children on day one of a divorce filing. Fathers are very often placed immediately below the poverty line b the unfair child support guidelines that are often ten times the cost of raising a child. Ultimately they usually lose anyway, no matter what the situation and are raked over the coals with tens of thousands in unnecessary legal fees. It is insidious and generates miserable results.

Shared parenting is coming, the grass roots movement is forming now worldwide. You can fight it and lose votes, or join it, because it is in the best interests of children and families and the RIGHT thing to do.

You must decide. However, clearly you are not yet aware of the inevitability of this due to our FUNDAMENTAL constitutional rights to raise our children, and enjoy their company.

Additionally the laws the legislatures have implemented to protect battered women are being used to abuse fathers. Today lawyers admit in private that between 50% and 90% of restraining orders issued are used to throw the father out of the house and denying them access to their children, often with false (and sometimes even no) charges. This is enormously destructive to families and children. However, again the legal system loves this because it generates more huge legal fees. No "due process", no presumption of innocence, no "equal rights" guaranteed under the ERA.

Do you know that Virginia, with a population similar to Massachusetts, has about 1,500 outstanding restraining orders at any one time and Massachusetts has about 50,000? Do you think men in Massachusetts are 33 times more violent? Of course not, lawyers in Massachusetts, Connecticut and may states are using this legislation for unfair advantage in divorce. The abuse is immoral, rampant and despicable. Any woman that is willing to just say the word "fear" to a judge, true or not, immediately evicts her husband and controls the children and home on day one. It is a horrible situation.

There is no question that the family courts and judges are literally breaking the constitution every day (Fourteenth Amendment Title 42, Sec. 1983, 1985 and other amendments). The only question is when will they be called to task and held responsible for this behavior. I, for one, am committed to a multi-year battle to make this happen and will be raising millions of dollars for this cause (as I have for other worthy nonprofit and children's causes in the past).

Fatherlessness is now encouraged by the states and current legal system. It is one of the largest problems in the U.S. today. It is a silent travesty that is now coming to light. Please research this further and you will easily see that only lawyers and judges benefit from the current system, not children and families. Of course they want it maintained for their personal enrichment.

The government is now effectively regulating against marriage, because it is so onerous to get divorced today, with as much as 40% of your after tax income going to your ex-wife just for "child support", 30% going to taxes and only 30% to live on. On average this can represent more than six times the actually cost of raising a child (by independent statistics). Hence this is "child extortion" not child support - which would be 50% of the actual cost of raising a child - 1/10th today's level. Any man earning less than $70,000 per year can not even afford their own small apartment in Massachusetts and many other states today. The men also are forced to pay the taxes on the ex-wife's free ride income and far more, as the women get the "head of household" tax benefits. This a on-two-three punch for men buried in the numbers.

You must become more informed on this issue. I trust further research will educate you on the damage current laws are causing to our children and families.

A woman Senator will easily get the votes of women. What about the millions of non-custodial fathers? They are coming to the forefront now.

Please for our children's sake help this happen more quickly.

Best Regards,

Robert - A Concerned Father whose children have been kidnapped by the state
Father of 2 beautiful children who want and need more time with their dad