Note from ANCPR:   The following article gives the argument that all shared parenting advocates face every day, and many fathers face in the court room.  Kind of a “if she’s saying it, it must be true” argument.  The domestic violence issue always trumps any fathers’ rights argument or shared parenting right.  The courts and bureaucracies are ready made to cater to this kind of argument.  In fact, the entire divorce industry itself loves this kind of thing, since everyone gets into the act, and collects huge fees.  In the U.S., Canada and the UK, we are so heavily invested in this kind of thinking that there may well not be any chance of reform.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Mothers protecting their children should not have to defy the courts

Mothers protecting their children should not have to defy the courts

Violent fathers are not good role models. Judges should be tougher on their visiting rights, says Sandra Horley

Tuesday July 24, 2007
The Guardian

I read with concern that “senior judges have issued a strong warning to divorced and separated mothers”, who risk losing the right to have their children live with them if they defy court orders for fathers to have contact with their children (Judges get tough on fathers’ rights to contact with children, July 16). As you report, “the cases signal a tougher approach by the judges, who in the past have rarely used the last-ditch option of moving a child”.

In an ideal world, children would be able to have contact with both parents. But this is not an ideal world, and in many cases domestic violence is behind the denial of contact. At Refuge, we see many victims of such violence; and an automatic presumption that it is in “the best interests of the child” to have contact with both parents, ignores the courts’ responsibility to protect that child. (more…)

Just received this from Stephen Baskerville:

Phyllis Schlafly’s latest column, “Children’s Rights Should Include Life with Both Parents,” is now released and has been published in at least one newspaper:  http://www.bendweekly.com/Opinion/8387.html.  This is a very powerful argument for shared parenting and parental rights.  It also mentions Robert Pedersen’s bike ride and my book, Taken Into Custody (below). (more…)

View the Fox News Channel Promo Video!  HB 4564 advocate, Robert Pedersen, is interviewed on his Runner-Up win in Best Life Magazine’s National Hero Dad Contest and the Equal Parenting Bike Trek

Both News 8 and Fox News Channel 17 interviewed Robert Pedersen recently.  Fox News Channel did an excellent promo video leading up to their newscast on Robert Pedersen.  View their video promo here! I am sure you will agree they did an outstanding job with this promo.  More videos to come soon! (more…)

Note from ANCPR: This is a very significant piece of news.  As far as I know, this is one of the first times that religious leaders have had the fortitude to stand up for the principle of the importance of not writing off the importance of a father in the life of a child.  This story concerns Scotland, but perhaps if enough people talk with their pastors, bishops and so forth, the same kind of pronouncements could be forthcoming in America.

Defend the rights of fathers, protect the traditional family, Scottish bishops urge PM – Catholic Online

Defend the rights of fathers, protect the traditional family, Scottish bishops urge PM

7/17/2007

Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

GLASGOW , Scotland (Catholic Online) – The state oversteps its bounds by attempting to write out in law and in social policy the role of the father in the raising of children, said the Catholic bishops of Scotland.

In a July 13 letter written to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Scotland’s two most senior Catholic officials, Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh and St. Andrews and Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, the president and vice president, respectively, of the Scottish Bishops’ Conference, called for an urgent review of the timetable for the ongoing public consultation on the “Human Tissue and Embryology Bill,” arguing elements of the draft legislation could be extremely harmful to the long-term welfare of children. (more…)

Guardian | Judges get tough on fathers’ rights to contact with children

Judges get tough on fathers’ rights to contact with children· Rulings move girl and boy from mothers’ homes
· Warning to separated parents who deny access

Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday July 16, 2007
Guardian

Senior judges have issued a strong warning to divorced and separated mothers that they risk losing the right to have their children live with them if they defy court orders and stop the children’s fathers seeing them. In two recent cases the court of appeal has upheld judgments moving children from their mother’s to their father’s home after the mothers flouted orders allowing the fathers to have regular contact with their children. (more…)

Cumberland Times-News – Fathers Rights group eyes state laws, local courts

Fathers Rights group eyes state laws, local courts

To the Editor:
Last fall a handful of fathers and myself started a most needed organization entitled Maryland Fathers Rights League. This organization has two branches. A legislative committee headed by Ed Bogard is working closely with state elected officials to change laws, making custody laws more favorable for fathers in Maryland. The other branch of the organization is what is entitled “local.” This entails members attending further hearings and trials, monitoring the activities of The Family Crisis Resource Center, providing activities for children who are victims of divorce (a Father’s Day picnic), monitoring activities of local judges and lawyers involving custody, and printing the publication entitled “Family Journal,” which exposes the horrors of the Allegany County court system.

One of the questions I am continuously asked is, why does the court system shake down the father, and in most cases they have not been the one to destroy the family? The court system operates from a bureaucratic, feminist, anti-American and Godless mentality. My next answer is, “the money.” (more…)

Fathers’ group plot Zara protest | the Daily Mail

Fathers’ group plot Zara protest

Last updated at 22:42pm on 7th July 2007
Police have uncovered a plot by Fathers4Justice to target Zara Phillips, it has been revealed. Militants from the fathers’ rights group, which scaled Buckingham Palace in 2004, plan to chain themselves to fences at next month’s Gatcombe Horse Trials in Gloucestershire.

“They intend to disrupt the event itself and try to impede Zara Phillips,” a F4J source revealed.

Princess Anne’s 26-year-old daughter is the European and World Champion in eventing. (more…)

 Note from ANCPR:

This is a very interesting case.  At least the courts recognized the right of the father, who is in prison, but will be released eventually, to assert his right to develop a relationship with his child.  It’s very easy, when looking at these cases from a safe distance, to simply go on principle – the child is a child of the father, father wants a relationship, and that’s just the way it is.  On the other hand, the child is in a stable home, with other kids, and with foster parents who love him.  However, it seems to me that for too long courts, and society as a whole, has tried to play God with family and children.  The assertion of the father at the end of this article is exactly right.  The child deserves to know where he came from.  His father is alive, and wants to be with him.  Who are we to make judgments about the fitness of this man to act as father. The fact is, he is the father.  Period. What we as a society need to do is to see situations like this from eyes bathed in love, unconditional love.  From this perspective, the courts and the foster parents would offer the child as much love as they can, as well as support, encouragement, and love for the father.  Instead, it’s all about possession, me, mine, rights, etc.  Isn’t this exactly why there is so much strife in this world?  When humans try to play God, this is the result – strife and suffering.  We just can’t get it right.  By stepping aside, and simply letting God do the work, there is the possibility of real healing in this case, for all parties.  What would it take for the people in our society to begin to look at family issues that way?

The Hawk Eye (source)

Court protects father’s rights

Wisconsin ruling could have longstanding implications. By SARAH CARR

and MARY ZAHN

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE — Bobby Grady, a convicted felon in secure detention, didn’t know for more than a year that he had a son.

When he finally learned of his son’s existence, it was only to discover that his parental rights were about to be legally terminated.

Now, Grady wants his son. (more…)

Received this from Bruce Eden:

NJ reduces child support guidelines by 25%

Lawyers claim only “rich” will pay less for child support.  But, in NJ, what is considered “rich”?
Based on these new guidelines, couples earning a NET weekly combined income of $1500 is where the child support award for one child will be the same as it is now.  Combined NET weekly income over this amount will start to reduce the child support amounts for one child.

The break-even point, where the new child support guidelines are the same as the old guidelines, for three (3) children will be at $900 per week combined NET weekly income.

So most middle and upper class divorced families will see a percentage drop in the child support guidelines when they reach the above referenced combined NET weekly incomes.

And, Judge Richard Russell, who is mentioned in the article, as the chair for the NJ Supreme Court’s Family Practice Committee’s subcommittee on child support guidelines, is the same Judge, who in a 1995 New Jersey Law Journal article told judges at a domestic violence training conference for judges, to “ignore the constitutional rights of men” when placing a domestic violence order against them, “throw them out in the street with just the shirt on their back, and tell them ‘See ya’”, “because you don’t want to see your names in the headlines”, if something goes wrong if a woman is injured, maimed or killed.

Bruce Eden, Director
DADS (Dads Against Discrimination)–New Jersey & New York Chapters

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1183623583177770.xml&coll=1&thispage=1

Rich may pay less for child support

Legal debate grows on revised guidelines
Thursday, July 05, 2007
BY MARGARET McHUGH
Star-Ledger Staff

Higher-income families in New Jersey could see their child support drop by as much as 25 percent under the state’s latest guidelines.

The change, which took effect in September, was based on a national survey that found families making $100,000 or more were spending a smaller portion of their income on child rearing (excluding daycare) than they had in the 1980s.

Child support in New Jersey is supposed to approximate the amount parents in an intact family spend on their children. But attorneys point out inflation is up 25 percent since 1997, the last time the guidelines were updated. For wealthier parents to pay less, they say, makes no sense. (more…)

Received this from Stephen Baskerville:

Mike McManus has written a column featuring my forthcoming book, Taken Into Custody (see below). MIke is a prominent columnist and founder of the highly respected Marriage Savers, which is devoted to (and successful at) rescuing marriages from the horrors of the divorce industry. Yet I cannot find that a single newspaper has printed the column. (Something similar happened last year when Mike wrote a column on John Murtari’s arrest and incarceration.)

Mike McManus is, along with Phyllis Schlafly, the most eminent figure to publicly align himself with the cause of shared parenting and against the injustices of family courts by actively writing about it. We must encourage him and other respected public figures to enlist themselves with us by showing that their effort is not in vain.

If you have contacts with newspaper editors, please urge them to publish this column. You should call the Op Ed or Editorial Page editor and say why the column should be published before sending it. If interested the editor should call Mike at 301 469-5870.

Stephen

****************************************

http://www.ethicsandreligion.com/redesignedcolumns/C1347.htm

June 20, 2007
Column #1,347
“Taken Into Custody”
by Mike McManus

Father’s Day was not joyful for millions of fathers who had a divorce forced upon them, whose children were “taken into custody” by the mother who filed for the divorce.

Indeed, Stephen Baskerville is a father who feels “taken into custody,” since he can’t see his children, when it’s not authorized. For example, Father’s Day fell on a weekend when he did not have custody. Fortunately, one daughter had a piano recital, and he was able to attend and chat with her and her sister for a few minutes afterward. That was his Father’s Day. (more…)