The American Coalition for Fathers
and Children
The American Coalition for Fathers
and Children is dedicated to
creating a family law system which
promotes equal rights for all
parties affected by divorce.
Contact the ACFC at 1-800-978-3237
or visit them on the web at
www.acfc.org.
Parenting Plan Calendar Software
Shared Ground (R) is an
easy-to-use custody calendar
software program designed for
divorced families to track
visitation schedules. Includes a
built-in percentage calculator,
schedule templates, free training
and excellent customer assistance.
Parents, attorneys, arbitrators and
mediators can generate equitable
parenting plans, which is especially
useful for parents seeking fair
division of their children's time.
FREE TRIAL SOFTWARE AVAILABLE by
clicking
here. |
ACFC Issues New Report: Family
Violence in America: The Truth about
Domestic Violence and Child Abuse
The American Coalition for Fathers and
Children has just issued a new report,
Family Violence in America: The Truth about
Domestic Violence and Child Abuse,
which explains the many ways the war on
domestic violence has separated children
from the fathers they love and need, and has
led to "by far the most severe and alarming
violation of constitutional freedoms in the
United States today."
The report, penned by ACFC President
Stephen Baskerville, PhD., concludes
that family dissolution is creating child
abuse, and that child custody disputes are a
large factor both in fabricated accusations
of domestic violence and actual incidents.
According to the report:
"The public and policymakers have been
seriously misled [about domestic violence].
Gaping inconsistencies separate what the
scientific data demonstrate about family
violence from current public policy. When
the scientific knowledge of these problems
is understood, it becomes clear that current
policy is not likely to alleviate these
problems. More disturbingly, by
destabilizing families it is likely to be
contributing to them...
"To break this circle, we call for a
radical departure from existing programs and
offer the following recommendations:
"Government must adhere to the Bill of
Rights and other constitutional protections.
"Reform constitutionally questionable
programs, such as the Violence Against Women
Act, that politicize and distort law
enforcement and target individuals because
of their membership in groups or their
political beliefs rather than their deeds.
"Statutory protection for parental rights to
ensure that law enforcement programs are not
commandeered to create unaccountable police
actions against innocent parents, depriving
them of their children without due process
of law.
"A legal presumption of equal and shared
legal and physical custody of children in
cases of divorce, separation, and unmarried
parents. By strengthening families and the
bonds between parents and their children, we
will be addressing the roots of family
violence, including child abuse."
To read the 72 page report, click
here. To contact the ACFC about the
report, write to
info@acfc.org or call
800-978-DADS (3237).
Dr. Phil Trashes Dads--Again
Popular daytime TV host Dr. Phil is
father-bashing again. In the past I've
criticized Dr. Phil for supporting and
whitewashing abusive mother Bridget Marks,
who was found by five separate judges to
have coached her little girls to believe
that they had been sexually molested by
their father.
Marks became a cause celebre after
(briefly) losing custody of her twin girls
to their father, against whom she had waged
a vicious parental alienation campaign.
Marks had appeared on Dr. Phil during the
custody battle, and Dr. Phil held a joyous
reunion with her on the air in May of last
year to celebrate her victory in the custody
battle.
The father's side spoke for the first
time publicly on
His Side with Glenn Sacks--to listen
or to read a transcript of the that show, go
to
Father's Side in Bridget Marks Custody Case
Speaks Publicly for First Time, 4/5/05.
Several New York newspapers quoted from our
show in their news articles.
To
learn more about the Marks case, including
Marks' legal team taunting me over their
court victory, Marks' unkind comments for
me, and my newspaper columns on the Marks
case, see
Bridget Marks Ruling: It's OK to Coach
Little Girls Into Saying They'd Been
Molested (4/7/05)
Now Dr. Phil is again on the warpath
against dads, pushing the discredited "lazy
husband" myth. The promo for one of his
shows this week is called
The Divorce Experiment and reads:
"Are you
married to a man who doesn't know how good
he has it? You do the cooking, the cleaning,
take care of the kids, and he still takes
you for granted? After seven years, Amy
finds herself in a marriage where she is
expected to wait on her husband hand and
foot, and never voice her opinion. Her
husband, Greg, is a self-proclaimed male
chauvinist pig and says his wife's job is to
take care of the family without questioning
his role as 'king' of the house. Amy says if
Greg doesn't learn to treat her like his
equal and not his servant, she's going to
divorce him. Dr. Phil sends in a
Relationship Rescue team of strong women to
teach Greg a lesson! While Amy is sent off
on a special trip to build her self-esteem,
Greg gets three new 'wives' who give him a
dose of his own medicine as they put him
through all that he demands of his wife on a
daily basis. Will he finally see Amy as his
equal and become a better spouse in the
process?"
While it's certainly possible to find lazy
husbands (and lazy wives), as I've noted in
many columns and on the radio, the idea that
husbands don't do their share or that "women
work two jobs, men only work one" is a
complete myth. In my co-authored column
Are American Husbands Slackers? (Tallahassee
Democrat, 3/22/06) family law attorney
Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"Feminist critics compare the work men
and women do at home but fail to properly
account for their disparate obligations
outside the home. Census data shows that
only 40% of married women with children
under 18 work full-time, and over a quarter
do not hold a job outside the home.
"According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics' 2004 Time Use Survey, men spend
one and a half times as many hours working
as women do, and full-time employed men
still work significantly more hours than
full-time employed women.
"When both work outside the home and
inside the home are properly considered, it
is clear that men do at least as much as
women. A 2002 University of Michigan
Institute for Social Research survey found
that women do 11 more hours of housework a
week than men but men work 14 hours a week
more than women. According to the BLS, men's
total time at leisure, sleeping, doing
personal care activities, or socializing is
a statistically meaningless 1% higher than
women's. The Families and Work Institute in
New York City found that fathers now provide
three-fourths as much child care as mothers
do--50% more than 30 years ago."
We also noted that men do the most
dangerous and demanding jobs, and that men
are vastly more likely than women to be
killed or injured on the job. We wrote of
the "sacrifices made by men like Terry
Helms, one of the 12 miners killed in the
Sago Mine disaster [in January]...Terry's
son Nick told the Associated Press that his
father 'had endured numerous injuries in a
30-year career and hated mining because of
the dangers'..'[My father] is very
selfless,' Nick said. '[He] refused to quit
because the job put food on the table...He
gave his life in there so I could go to the
movies.'"
|
The Second Wives Club
The Second Wives Club is what women in
blended families are looking for:
Remarriage, divorce, child custody, and step
parenting discussed in a solution-oriented,
mature, and intelligent way; articles and
news written by thought-provoking experts
and journalists; personal accounts and
advice from some of life's most interesting
women.
www.SecondWivesClub.com
Help for Boston Dads
Boston family law attorney Nick Palermo
is a shared custody advocate who believes
that divorced dads are parents, not
visitors. The Law Offices of Nicholas
Palermo is a dedicated and committed trial
law firm which has worked to make shared
custody for all fit parents the law of the
land.
LAW OFFICES OF NICHOLAS PALERMO |
Another Rich, High-Living Deadbeat Goes to
Jail (aka Another Low Income Dad Goes to Debtors'
Prison)
From the Akron Beacon Journal article
Dad who escaped procreation ban jailed on child
support charges (make sure to check out the next
to last paragraph):
"A judge who was forced to lift his probation
condition that a deadbeat dad not father more
children has sentenced the man to six months in jail
for continuing to fail to pay child support.
"Sean Talty, 34, of Akron, pleaded guilty on Friday
to violating terms of his five-year probation by
failing to stay current on the payments.
"Medina County Common Pleas Judge James Kimbler, who
sentenced Talty to probation in 2002 and modified
the terms under Ohio Supreme Court order in 2004,
said Talty can reduce the sentence through community
service.
"Talty has fathered seven children by five women and
also owes support in Butler, Summit and Wayne
Counties. The Medina County case involves $30,000 he
owes for three of the children by two of the women,
including a former wife.
"Court records show the probation violations involve
$3,600 owed for 2005 and this year and failure to
get a high school equivalency degree.
"In 2004, Kimbler lifted one of his probation
conditions imposed in 2002, that Talty not father
any more children while on probation. The Ohio
Supreme Court had ruled the sentence was overbroad
because it didn't include a method for lifting the
ban if Talty caught up with his payments."
A few thoughts:
1) Obviously Talty's no model citizen. However,
you're not supposed to be imprisoned for debt in
this country--debtors prisons were abolished a long
time ago. Talty is being jailed because of failure
to pay child support, but nobody questions whether
his child support was commensurate with his income.
This is a guy who can't even get a high school
GED--it's doubtful he earns or could earn enough to
pay the obligation he's being imprisoned for.
2) Why are the five women who
bore Talty's children held blameless? All of these
women did exactly what Talty did‑‑they had children
whom they could not financially support. In fact,
given the much wider range of birth control and
reproductive choices that women have, these women
had a much larger say in the decision to have
children than Oakley did. Low income mothers get
sympathy and assistance--fathers get blame and jail.
3) I've checked the top 10 most
wanted deadbeat parents lists put out by the states
on many different occasions, usually in preparation
for an article on the war against so-called
"deadbeat dads." In my co-authored column
Federal Child Support Enforcement Cuts Will Hurt
Bureaucrats, not Children (Las Vegas
Review-Journal, 12/17/05, Riverside
Press-Enterprise, 12/16/05) family law attorney
Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"In the past few months, 'deadbeat parents' have
been the targets of highly-publicized law
enforcement actions in Virginia, Texas, Kentucky,
and Arizona. Yet Virginia's 'Most Wanted Deadbeat
Parents' list is topped by a laborer, a carnival
hired hand, and a construction worker, who
collectively somehow owe over a quarter million
dollars in child support. Of all the parents on
Texas' and Kentucky's lists, only one appears to
have an education, and the most common designation
for occupation is 'laborer.' Near the top of
Arizona's list is a maintenance man who owes
$90,223, an unemployed man of no known occupation
who owes $54,298, and, best of all, a roofer who
owes $240,581.
"This week Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
boasted that he had arrested one of the 'deadbeats'
on his 'Most Wanted' list--Charles Silva, who owes
almost $40,000 in child support. Yet it's doubtful
that Silva will be writing a five figure check any
time soon--Silva's occupation is 'general laborer.'
Far from being lists of well-heeled businessmen,
lawyers, and accountants, the vast majority of the
men on these lists do low wage and often seasonal
work, and owe large sums of money which they could
never hope to pay off.
"Child support enforcement agencies are notorious
for their abusive tactics towards such men..."
Finding Your
N.U.T.s.--Non-negotiable Unalterable
Terms
Wayne M. Levine, M.A., founder
of BetterMen(R), has written a new
book with sage advice and proven
tools for men who want to be
BetterMen(R) in their relationships
and in their lives. Finding Your
N.U.T.s offers men the truth about
themselves, their relationships,
their responsibilities as men, and
the power they have to be
BetterMen(R).
www.bettermen.org |
|
How to Win Shared Custody
If you are an active, engaged, committed,
dedicated, loving parent facing a divorce,
family law attorney
Nicholas Palermo's The Ten Essential
Elements to Winning Joint Shared Physical
and Legal Custody can help you protect
your relationship with your children.
www.TenEssentialElements.com |
Speaking of the Boy Crisis in Education (Part
I)
Just after the publication of my co-authored
column
Resolving the Boy Crisis in Schools (Chicago
Sun-Times, 5/7/06) last week I was given another
reminder of it in my son's life. My son's Boy Scout
troop had planned to participate in a big, week long
Boy Scout campout in August. The trip sounded
fantastic--a week up in the mountains in Northern
California with all sorts of fun activities--hiking,
archery, boating, etc. Except it turns out that the
troop won't be going. The reason? Most of the boys
couldn't sign up, because they were all in danger of
having to go to summer school. Somehow I doubt that
many Girl Scout summer trips are being cancelled for
that reason...
In the column
Resolving the Boy Crisis in Schools (Chicago
Sun-Times, 5/7/06), we discussed a recent
Chicago Board of Education report which showed that
girls enjoy a 63-37% advantage over boys in gaining
admittance to Chicago's eight selective-enrollment
college prep high schools. Family law attorney Jeff
Leving and I wrote:
"In response, Chicago Public
Schools CEO Arne Duncan and top administrators at
Jones, Whitney Young and Brooks prep schools are
advocating that schools consider 'gender
weighting.' Yet to balance the scales by employing
admissions preferences is misguided. What's needed
instead is a rethinking of the way we educate,
beginning at the earliest levels.
"Many healthy, energetic,
intelligent boys are branded as behavior problems as
soon as they begin school, and are punished and put
on Ritalin or other drugs so they will sit still.
Little thought is given to two obvious questions:
how could a six or seven year-old be 'bad'? And how
could so many boys need drugs to function in school?
Because schools and classrooms do not fit their
educational needs, many boys disengage from school
long before they ever reach the prep school level.
"Many modern educational
practices are counterproductive for boys. Success in
school is tightly correlated with the ability to sit
still, be quiet and complete paperwork and
assignments which are sometimes of questionable
value. A 'get tough' mentality--under which teachers
give excessive homework lest they appear uncommitted
or weak--has become a substitute for educators
actually having a sound reason for assigning all the
work they assign."
We also discussed one of my pet
peeves--the way our schools (and our society)
devalue and disregard the talents and contributions
of men who work with their hands. We wrote:
"The deterioration of
vocational education also hurts boys. US Department
of Education data show that these programs suffered
a sharp decline from 1982 to 1992 and never
recovered. Vocational classes once started low and
middle achieving boys on the path to careers as
skilled tradesmen. They have now often been replaced
by an asinine yet pervasive mantra that defines as
successful only those who go to college and become
doctors or lawyers. This mantra often disrespects
boys' blue collar fathers, who also happen to be
their primary role models. In fact, to suggest that
a boy pursue a career working with his hands leaves
a teacher open to charges of harming students by
encouraging low expectations.
I've discussed the boy crisis in education in
numerous newspaper columns and on the radio. I don't
know how many times I've been on a radio show and a
caller has said that his or her five or six year-old
boy is a "behavior problem" or was "diagnosed with
ADD" and he or she was agonizing over whether or not
to put him on Ritalin.
The boy crisis was also the impetus behind our
highly-publicized
Campaign Against 'Boys are Stupid' Products
(12/14/03-3/1/04). In seven weeks our campaign drove
T-shirts, hats, and other merchandise bearing the
slogan "Boys are Stupid--Throw Rocks at Them" out of
nearly 3,500 retail outlets worldwide. In my column
Why I Launched the Campaign Against 'Boys are
Stupid' Products (Los Angeles Daily News,
2/4/04) I wrote:
"The stores dropped the products after being
bombarded with thousands of e-mails and phone calls,
largely from the listeners and supporters of my
radio talk show. Most of those taking action have
been fathers who are concerned about the cultural
atmosphere surrounding their boys.
"However, some of the most passionate and articulate
supporters of our campaign have been the mothers and
grandmothers of boys. It is mothers who generally
supervise their children's educations on a
day-to-day basis, and they more than anybody see
boys' largely ignored struggles.
"Though our educational establishment has been slow
to recognize it, boys have fallen seriously behind
girls at all K-12 levels. Girls get better grades
than boys and are far more likely to graduate high
school and go to college. The vast majority of
learning-disabled students are boys, as are students
diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder. Nearly nine million prescriptions of
Ritalin are written for American children each
year--most of them for boys between the ages of six
and 12.
"Boys also suffer from having few men in their
lives. Modern schools, particularly at the
elementary level, are often devoid of men except
perhaps the janitor and the maintenance crew. And
there are more boys growing up in fatherless homes
than ever before.
"Add to all of these problems a boy-bashing preteen
and teen culture--where clothing which insults and
taunts boys is seen as acceptable and 'funny'--and
it's natural that many boys feel the deck is stacked
against them.
"As parents, we suffer along with our children, and
like millions of mothers and fathers, my wife and I
have lain awake in bed many nights worrying about
our son. Perhaps this explains why the campaign has
struck such a chord--over 400 newspapers and
television and radio stations in seven countries
have carried stories about it."
Concerned about Financial Issues in Your
Divorce?
If you're concerned about financial issues
in your divorce, contact
Jim DiGabriele of DiGabriele, McNulty &
Co by email
here or at 973-243-2600. |
Speaking of the Boy Crisis in Education (Part
II)
Part I was from my son's life, part II is from my
daughter's life. My daughter's school recently
instituted a new after school policy. Now instead of
the kids going out to the yard to play, all students
who don't go home immediately after school are
corralled into the lunch area to do homework under
supervision for 30 minutes.
This is a perfect example of the problems
inherent in our almost all-female elementary school
system. The school means well, but any group of male
teachers would know that after being cooped up for
almost eight hours those boys need to go out and run
around. Instead, after being forced to sit all
day--quite unnatural for little boys--when the bell
rings they must be forced marched over to yet
another half hour of sitting.
It also turns into a chore for the supervising
teachers, who must stand guard over the boys for a
half hour. No doubt many boys get punished because
they can't sit still and do their homework after
school--as if they don't already get punished enough
during the day for being unable to sit still. I
prefer the school National Review Washington
Editor Kate O'Beirne describes in
her latest book, where the students work hard
and achieve, but also "have recess twice a day, play
in the rain, wreck their good shoes, and...they like
school."
Dad's Time Tracker - Get More Time With Your
Children and Manage Your Child Support
Dad's Time Tracker helps divorced
fathers collect the information necessary to
get more parenting time, lower their child
support, or gain custody of their children.
This guide walks fathers through creating a
child support payment record and thorough
tracking of expenses made on behalf of the
children. Co-parenting can be dramatically
improved when utilizing this tool because
key "friction" areas--expenses, medical
issues, contacts, day care information,
parenting time--are addressed in advance.
www.dadstimetracker.com
Father: A Child's Right
Visit
www.fatherachildsright.org to find
information about child custody issues
related to fathers and their children's
rights, as well as book reviews on
parenting, custody and divorce. A fun and
exciting
father & son baseball component is added
for enjoyment. Buy books, magazines and DVDs
for your children. Learn about the
Michigan Shared Parenting bill.
www.fatherachildsright.org |
Hero Dad Tells Story in Parents
Magazine
Heroic father
Joe Seldner tells of his long, hard and
ultimately successful for his children in his
Parents Magazine article
"My Fight to Keep My Kids" (April, 2000). Joe's
trial by ordeal will sound familiar to many of you:
"The nightmare began with a knock on the door. On
that hot August afternoon in 1993, my wife was out
shopping, and the kids, Dan, 9, and Laura, 6, were
at swimming lessons with my parents, who had flown
in from New Jersey. The visitor identified herself
as a caseworker for Child Protective Services and
told me that I had been accused of physically
abusing my son. I laughed. She didn't. When I asked
who would make such a ridiculous charge, she said
the information was confidential. 'I'd like you to
leave,' I said, barely containing my anger and
incredulity. Having dropped her bombshell, she
complied.
"When my wife got home, she refused to discuss the
matter and referred me to her lawyer. It was clear
that my accuser was the woman I had been married to
for ten years. I had known our relationship was in
trouble, but I'd never imagined she would do
anything like this. It felt as if someone had hit me
in the hack of the head with a sledgehammer.
"Two days later the sheriff's office served me with
divorce papers. The following week, the caseworker
came back to interview both of the kids. When she
came downstairs afterward, looking a little annoyed,
she declared there was nothing to the allegations. I
was momentarily relieved -- but the war had just
begun."
Read the full article
here. To contact Joe, click
here.
Kidnapping is Kidnapping is Kidnapping
David L. Levy, CEO of the Children's Rights
Council, had a nice letter to the editor in the
Washington Times last week:
"We grieve with the parents whose Japanese
children were abducted by North Korean agents
('Japan presses N. Korea to resolve abduction
issue,' World, Saturday).
"Congress and the president were kind to meet
with the grieving parents, but it is hypocritical
for Japan to complain about the abduction of its
children while American children are abducted to
Japan with the approval of the Japanese government.
"Japan makes its position very clear by refusing
to join the 68 other countries that are signatories
to The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of
International Child Abduction, which is designed to
prevent international kidnapping.
"Walter Benda of Max Meadows, Va., has not been
able to visit with his two daughters, now 17 and 15,
for more than 10 years. The children, who were born
in the United States, were taken by their Japanese
mother when they were 6 and 4, while the family was
temporarily residing near Tokyo. Mr. Benda has spent
countless time in visits to Japan and has pursued
the case to the Japanese Supreme Court to no avail.
"Japan treats children as if they were suitcases
or pieces of furniture -- that is, as the property
of the parent with custody.
"This nefarious activity in Japan starts at the top
-- with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
At the time of his divorce, Mr. Koizumi got custody
of their two boys. Their third child, who was unborn
at the time of the divorce, was given to the mother.
Mr. Koizumi has never taken the initiative to meet
the son born after the divorce, and he has refused
to allow the mother to have any contact with the
older boys. This is from an article in the
Washington Post by Kathryn Tolbert on May 19,
2001.
"Japan is a glass house, throwing stones at North
Korea while hoping the world will ignore its own
abysmal record of allowing the kidnapping and hiding
of U.S. children.
DAVID L. LEVY
CEO
Children's Rights Council
Hyattsville"
Canadian Court Nails Jell-O to a Wall
In my co-authored column
PBS Declares War on Dads (World Net Daily,
10/20/05) family law attorney Jeff Leving and I
discussed the hard struggle so many noncustodial
parents face to get courts to properly address
Parental Alienation Syndrome in their cases. We
wrote:
"As a society we pretend that broken families are
all men's fault, pay lip service to the importance
of fathers, and close our eyes while millions of
children are separated from the fathers they love
and need. Because that's what mom wants. Because
it's easier to blame everything on dad than it is to
confront mom on her destructive behavior. Because
trying to hold a divorcing mother accountable for
her behavior is like trying to nail Jell-O to a
wall. Because there's a high political cost to
be paid for crossing mothers and none to be paid for
crossing fathers." (emphasis added)
Well, last week a Canadian court nailed Jell-O to
a wall. According to the story
Mother loses kids after hindering father's access:
"A divorced woman who sabotaged her children's
relationship with their estranged father has been
stripped of their custody in a decision by Ontario's
top court which sends a message that 'parental
alienation' harms children and will not be
tolerated.
"'We recognize, as did the trial judge, that the
remedy of granting custody to the father is a
dramatic one. However, that remedy was supported by
the expert evidence and by the mother's persistent,
ingrained and deep-rooted inability to support the
children's relationship with the father,' said three
judges of the Ontario Court of Appeal in a unanimous
decision this week.
"The court dismissed the appeal of the Jarvis,
Ontario mother against a lower court decision last
year which ordered that the primary residence of her
five-year-old twin boys be switched from the mother
-- who had sole physical custody of them since their
birth -- to her ex-husband who resides in Hamilton.
"Calling that decision 'amply supported by the
evidence,' the Appeal Court said that although the
mother was 'otherwise a good parent,' her persistent
'troublesome conduct' against the children's best
interests included unilaterally restricting the
father to daytime visits and failing to inform him
about the children's medications, or to give him
their prescription drugs, so that they would return
home from visits with him sicker than when they
left.
"Obstructed access affects thousands of divorced
parents and their children across Canada, according
to a 1998 parliamentary report which urged the
federal government and the provinces and territories
to devise a nationwide co-coordinated response to
failed parenting orders...
"The appeal court was also critical of the
mother's unilateral decision -- without warning,
just before the custody case went to trial -- to
uproot the boys from their school and community to
move to another town further away from their father.
'Moreover, the mother said that if the father moved
to her new town, she would move again,' the Court of
Appeal noted.
"'This conduct, in addition to many other
instances of alienating conduct, was properly viewed
by the trial judge as evidence of the mother's
inability to support the father's relationship with
the children and to consider the best interests of
the children.'
"By court order, the boys now reside with their
father, but live with their mother most weekends and
see her for mid-week evening visits."
The case is also another example of how move-aways
are used by alienating custodial parents to destroy
the relationships between children and their
noncustodial parents. This is one of the reasons our
two defeats of move-away legislation in the
California legislature (click
here and
here) are so important.
Tree House Solutions
Tree House Solutions, LLC is a
growing and evolving resource designed to
meet the emotional and informational needs
of parents who are going through divorce and
those already divorced. Tree House
activities are composed of live, real time
teleconferences on a weekly basis. These
sessions are conducted by two highly
experienced mental health practitioners,
versed in high conflict divorce. Drs. Bone
and Evans offer a wide spectrum of
suggestions and education regarding the
divorce process and co-parenting with
difficult former spouses.
www.treehousesolutions.org
Are You Really the Father?
Find out the underlying flaws in the DNA
paternity testing system and learn how a man
with results in the 90%, 95% or even 99%
positive range may not be the father. Learn
what most lawyers and judges don't know
about paternity testing.
www.paternitytestflaw.com. |
Double-Standard in Reporting on Male DV Victims
Dr. Charles Corry, the leader
of the
Equal Justice Foundation, the
American Coalition for Fathers and Children
affiliate in Colorado, discusses the recent murder
of
Clifford Evans, a Denver, Colorado male victim
of domestic violence. According to Corry:
"His wife, Debra, had stabbed him to death and if
you Google on Debra Evans you'll find a few brief
notes, e.g., the
Denver Post gives it a few short paragraphs.
Typical when a woman kills a man.
"What isn't mentioned is that Debra Evans, aka
Debrah Wellington, had two prior domestic violence
convictions, one in 2001 and another as far back as
1990. Presumably the 2001 conviction required her to
take the standard 36-week DV treatment program. But
perhaps she was one of the 50% of convicted
offenders who never complete the program because it
certainly didn't change her behavior.
"According to a Fox News reporter, the neighbors
in the apartment building had become inured to the
couple fighting, and that Clifford was always the
victim. By any definition, Debra Evans is a
'batterer' but you'll never find that out from the
press. It hasn't gone to trial yet but my guess is
she will be the 'battered woman' then.
"But imagine if Clifford had a couple of prior DV
convictions and then killed Debra? Front page, above
the fold coverage would be the norm. But since Debra
is the killer the case can be buried by the press."
Anti-Father CA Bill Pulled in Face of Huge
Opposition
In the face of over 4,000 opposition calls,
letters and faxes, California Senator Gloria Romero
(D-Los Angeles) has decided to withdraw a bill which
would have granted custodial parents an almost
unlimited right to move children far way from their
noncustodial parents. Romero pulled SB 1482 just
before today's scheduled hearing on the bill.
SB 1482 would have weakened if not abrogated the
California Supreme Court's 2004 LaMusga
move-away decision, which affirmed that courts have
the power to restrain moves which run counter to
children's best interests.
The bill was supported by a wide array of
feminist groups and state-funded pro-feminist
organizations, including the California National
Organization for Women, the California Commission on
the Status of Women, the California Partnership to
End Domestic Violence, the Coalition for Family
Equity, Haven Hills, Inc., Marin Abused Women's
Services, Business and Professional Women/USA, the
National Council of Jewish Women Los Angeles, the
Santa Clara County Domestic Violence Advocacy
Consortium, and others.
Opposition to the bill and unrestricted move-aways
was led by the
Alliance for Children Concerned About Move-Aways,
an advocacy group endorsed by over
50 mental health and family law professionals,
and Mike Robinson and the
California Alliance for Families and Children.
Several organizations of family law and mental
health professionals also opposed SB 1482,
including the California Judge's Association, the
California Psychological Association, and the State
Bar of California's Family Law Section.
This is the second time an attempt by
misguided feminists to abrogate
LaMusga has been defeated. From 1996
to 2004 move-away determinations were based
on the Burgess decision, which was
interpreted by California courts as
conferring unlimited move-away privileges.
Under Burgess the bonds between tens
of thousands of children and their
noncustodial parents were needlessly
ruptured.
The California Supreme Court
addressed the problem in the
LaMusga decision in April,
2004 by making it clear that courts can
prevent children from being moved when it is
detrimental to their interests. Among the
factors deemed important were the
relationship between the child and the
nonmoving parent.
In the summer of 2004 then
Senate President John Burton, one of the
most powerful people in California,
introduced SB 730, a bill which would have
granted custodial parents an almost
unlimited right to move children far way
from their noncustodial parents.
We organized opposition to
SB 730, and thousands of you wrote and
called Sacramento to oppose the bill. Our
campaign gained
widespread media attention and was
endorsed by numerous mental health and
family law
professionals. Burton surprised
Sacramento insiders by
withdrawing the bill a few weeks later.
When SB 1482 was originally introduced in
February, its language was innocuous. The
bill's backers then made a sweeping, last
minute amendment to the bill in order to
slip it through committee on April 25 before
opponents had a chance to organize. We
quickly organized a deluge of calls and
letters in opposition. The hearing on the
bill was postponed to May 9 and then the
bill was pulled.
As the
Alliance for Children Concerned About
Move-Aways noted in its
position letter:
"SB 1482 will make it more difficult for
children of divorce to retain the loving
bonds they share with both parents.
"SB 1482 specifically prohibits a parent
seeking to prevent his or her children from
being moved far away from citing most of the
evidence that could provide a basis for
restraining the move. Under this bill,
nonmoving parents are prevented from citing
the move's impact on their children's
relationships with them or the effects on
the children of losing their schools and
friends. This directly abrogates current
California case law, which says that the
children's relationship with their nonmoving
parent must be considered when deciding a
relocation case."
"The LaMusga move-away case,
decided by the California Supreme Court in
2004, is a good example of the way [under
Burgess] custodial parents were
permitted to move children far away without
justification. In that case the mother
sought to move her two boys from the Bay
Area to Ohio because, she claimed, she
wanted to attend a law school there.
Apparently none of the multitude of law
schools in the Bay Area sufficed. Later she
moved to Arizona because, she explained, her
new husband needed work. His job? Selling
cars...
"Part of the problem is that current
policies provide strong financial incentives
for moving. California has a high child
support guideline, a high cost of living,
and high wages. Thus custodial parents can
often live better by moving to states which
have a lower cost of living, because they
will still collect child support awards
based on California wages and support
guidelines. This is a terrible injustice to
noncustodial parents, who often must stay
behind to work to pay child support for
children who have been moved out of their
lives."
Thanks again to the thousands of you who
wrote or called Sacramento in opposition to
SB 1482.
Victories Cost Money
The defeat of SB 1482 once
again shows that shared parenting and
fatherhood advocates can win victories if we
are properly organized and funded. To donate
to help our campaign via PayPal or check,
click
here.
Victories cost money. In
these battles we are going up against large,
well-funded organizations like the National
Organization for Women and numerous
government-funded domestic violence
coalitions. Too often the people on our side
kid ourselves that we can compete against
these organizations without funding. Again,
to donate to help our campaign via PayPal or
check, click
here. All donations--large or
small--help.
|
Allred, Sacks Square off on SB 1482 on KABC in Los
Angeles
I debated Gloria Allred over SB 1482, the new
California move-away bill, on the Al Rantel Show
on KABC AM 790 in Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 3 at
7 PM PST. Allred won the 1996 Burgess case in
the California Supreme Court, which gave custodial
parents an almost unlimited right to move children
whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted. I opened
by saying that Gloria had given the people of
California a "dubious gift" with Burgess, and
Gloria replied that she had won an important right
for custodial parents.
Gloria said that it was unfair that the
LaMusga decision--currently California case law
which SB 1482 threatens and which we
defend--restricts parents with primary placement of
children (usually mothers) from moving, while not
restricting parents without primary placement
(usually fathers). I replied that all parents
involved are free to move wherever they want--it is
the children who may not be moved if a court
determines that it is against their best interests.
Gloria argued that restrictions on move-aways keep
custodial parents "held hostage" in their
neighborhoods, and that they should be able to "move
on with their lives." I countered that both parents
retain responsibilities to their children after
divorce--responsibilities which are at times
inconvenient or limiting. I asked if we would we
argue that noncustodial parents' responsibility to
pay child support holds them "hostage?"
Gloria and I have squared off on these issue on
several occasions in the past, and a few of my
readers felt that I was too nice to her during the
debate. I think a couple of other readers understood
what I was doing a little better:
"Glenn came across as articulate, reasonable, and
calm. Allred seemed disjointed. The moderator seemed
biased in Glenn's favor and Glenn did not
unnecessarily use that to his advantage as Allred
would have done if the reverse were true."
"Good debate, shows the gap between the sides. It's
less about law, and more about public policy and the
opinions that drive them. On her side, 'fathers need
to step up to the plate,' but when we do, we are
still irrelevant. Behind money, boyfriends, houses,
and mom's convenience, here we are. In her eyes the
mother divorces the father, and she divorces the
father from the children. On our side, we can show
that the application of Burgess has been a
disaster...You can't convert people like Ms. Allred,
but you can give them enough rope to hang
themselves. You did a good job, her sexist prejudice
against fathers came out loud and clear, just enough
rope for tonight's show."
Glenn Discusses SB 1482 on Hot 92 Jamz in
Los Angeles
I discussed
SB 1482, the new California bill which will make
it easier for custodial parents to move children
away from noncustodial parents, with Josefa Salinas
on Hot 92 Jamz FM 92.3 in Los Angeles on May 7.
Column: Memphis Commercial Appeal,
Chest-Thumping Sheriff Humiliate Hard Luck
Noncustodial Parents
My recent co-authored column,
Memphis Commercial Appeal, Chest-Thumping
Sheriff Humiliate Hard Luck Noncustodial Parents
(Tennessee Tribune, 4/27/06),
discusses recent attacks on Memphis "deadbeat dads."
The column details numerous examples of child
support enforcement publicly humiliating innocent
people. Family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:
"Shelby County Sheriff Mark
Luttrell recently published the names and birthdays
of 4,500 alleged deadbeat parents in the Memphis
Commercial Appeal, Tennessee's largest newspaper.
Luttrell states that he took out the ads because the
9,000 parents for whom he has warrants owe their
children $75 million--$8,333 per parent. One man
allegedly owes $1.3 million. At the same time,
Luttrell's deputies fanned out across largely black
South Memphis hunting down 'deadbeats.' Both the
humiliating newspaper ads and the police raids
unfairly target low-income parents...
"Child support enforcement
agencies are notorious for their bureaucratic
bungling and incessant computer errors. When other
law enforcement officials have published 'deadbeat'
parent lists similar to Luttrell's, innocent people
have been vilified and subjected to public ridicule.
"For example, when the
Louisville Courier-Journal published the names
and addresses of 1,000 alleged child support
scofflaws in July of last year on behalf of
Jefferson County Attorney Irv Maze, they listed
James H. Frazier as a deadbeat who owes $57,000.
Unfortunately, they listed his name above the home
address of James R. Frazier.
"WAVE 3 TV in Louisville
reported that James R. Frazier and his wife
Bertha--both of whom seethed at being publicly
humiliated--had been erroneously targeted by Maze
before, and had spent years fighting to straighten
out the error. In fact, Maze's office had previously
acknowledged its mistake--and then went ahead and
published the erroneous information anyway. In fact,
as of October 1--over two months later--Maze still
had not corrected the error on his list of 1,000
'deadbeats' on the County Attorney's website.
"ABC 7 KGO News in San
Francisco, California has followed the saga of Alex
Mendez, a childless man who has been mistakenly
targeted for alleged overdue child support five
times in the past three years by two different
counties. After embarrassing media coverage, local
enforcement officials repeatedly pledged to fix the
error but have failed to do so.
"The list published by the
Commercial Appeal appears to have similar
problems. Memphis' News Channel 3 WREG quotes a
juvenile court source as saying that some of those
on the list may have already paid their child
support. Nicholas Burchett of WREG was shocked and
angered to find his father listed as a
'deadbeat'--the man has been dead for 14 years.
"Eyewitness News-WPTY reports
that the Department of Human Services lost thousands
of dollars of child support paid by Hugh Jones of
Memphis, leaving Jones with a $10,000 child support
arrearage. According to WPTY, DHS cashed Jones'
checks six times but, despite Jones' detailed
documentation, has failed to credit his account.
WPTY reports that Jones 'has to continue paying his
child support if he wants to remain a free man' and
avoid jail, even though his 'debt' consists of money
he has already paid.
"In the wake of the
Louisville ads Maze wrote a column in which he
claimed that his policies 'make a clear distinction
between 'dead broke' and 'dead beat' among child
support obligors.' As an example, Maze explained
'One parent, whose name is not on the list, but who
is behind in her payments, contacted my office
stating that she had been unable to find steady
employment.'
"Yet child support expert Jane
Spies of the National Family Justice Association
discovered that although Maze says this woman was
not on his published deadbeat list, in a previous
interview on National Public Radio Maze spoke of the
same woman, and said she 'saw her name in the
newspaper' and contacted him. In other words, Maze
admits that the woman was too poor to pay her child
support, but he nevertheless publicly humiliated her
by publishing her name and address. Many if not most
of those targeted in Luttrell's raids and
Commercial Appeal ads are in similar
situations."
Legal Help for Fathers
If you live in Los Angeles, Riverside or
Orange counties and you're facing a divorce,
separation, or a child custody issue, the
law firm of Oddenino & Gaule can help.
Congressional Candidate Takes Strong Stand
for Noncustodial Parents' Rights
In 2004 Libertarian presidential candidate
Michael Badnarik had a strong noncustodial
parents' rights
platform. Badnarik is clearly aware of
and sensitive to the basic problems fathers
today face, particularly the sole custody
norm and the denigration of noncustodial
parents to "second class parent" status.
Badnarik is running for Congress in 2006--to
learn more, go to
www.badnarik.org. |
Tiger Woods' Father Remembered
Tiger Woods' father Earl died recently at age 74.
Eugene Robinson wrote in the
Washington Post:
"Earl Woods did much more than raise a supremely
talented golfer. In an age when it's rare to read a
sentence with the words 'African American' and
'father' that doesn't also include 'absent' or some
other pejorative, Earl and Tiger Woods were the
world's most visible, and inspiring, counterexample.
'He was the person I looked up to more than anyone,'
Tiger Woods said following his father's death, and
even the world's biggest cynic had to know he meant
every word.
"To me, the two defining aspects of Tiger Woods's
career have been his supernatural ability to make a
golf ball do impossible things and his relationship
with his father. Two moments stand out: The Sunday
afternoon in 1997 when Tiger became the first black
man ever to win the Masters and cried like a little
boy in the arms of his father, who was there against
doctor's orders after almost dying in heart surgery.
And the Sunday afternoon in 2005 when Tiger won his
fourth Masters and cried again, because Earl Woods,
for the first time, had been too sick to come to the
course and root him on."
PBS films Fathers & Families Meeting, Lobbying
A couple weeks ago we updated you on the
situation regarding the PBS controversy--see
An Announcement Regarding Our Campaign Against PBS's
Anti-Father
Breaking the Silence. We explained
that "we have been in talks with the producers who
are making the new film on behalf of PBS, and film
crews will be filming and conducting interviews in
New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other
places in April. Fathers & Families members will be
filmed April 27 and 28."
According to Fathers & Families:
"About 200 men and women attended Fathers &
Families' general membership meeting last Thursday,
April 27, at the Copley Westin Hotel in downtown
Boston. The meeting, led by Dan Hogan, was filmed by
a PBS documentary film crew. In addition, reporters
from several newspapers, including the Christian
Science Monitor were on hand.
"Members were truly eloquent in narrating how the
current system has torn their children out of their
lives, doing great harm to the children in the
process. A Massachusetts firefighter described how a
judge has made it virtually impossible for him to be
with his children now that he is a quadriplegic as a
result of an accident last year. A Harvard Medical
School gastroenterologist provided perhaps the most
tragicomic and ironic anecdote. Despite taking
life-and-death care of his patients, he described
how he has been prevented from discussing his
child's health and has had to defend himself against
charges that he caused his son's constipation!
"The meeting culminated a day in which the PBS crew
followed Ned Holstein as he patrolled the State
House, meeting with legislators and aides to
advocate for shared parenting. PBS also filmed
interviews in the F&F office.
"The evening event drew such a large crowd that
additional meeting space had to be opened up to
accommodate all who wished to get in.
"Dan Hogan began by introducing the staff,
consultants, interns and regular volunteers for
Fathers & Families. These 15 people demonstrate that
Fathers & Families is growing at a fast rate.
"Representative Colleen Garry of Dracut, the leading
legislative sponsor of our shared parenting bill,
received a standing ovation for her powerful speech
supporting shared parenting. Kevin Thompson fired up
the partisan crowd with his account of the banning
of his book, Exposing the Corruption in the
Massachusetts Family Courts. Jeff Parks
discussed the healing powers of parental alienation
groups and the role that political activism can play
in the healing process. Dan Hogan, after updating us
on the status of shared parenting around the country
and world, called for the fathers' movement to reach
out and begin a dialogue with our opponents,
especially the domestic violence movement. And Ned
Holstein closed the meeting by speaking movingly
about what it really means to be a father.
"Thanks to all who took the time to attend. When the
PBS documentary is aired, it will show that the
fathers' movement is one that fills the house to
overflowing. And most important, it will show that
we care deeply about our children."
Best Wishes,
Glenn Sacks
GlennSacks.com
HisSide.com
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