“The entire family-law system is unconstitutional,” Newdow told SN&R. “It deprives people of their rights to their relationships with their children.”

ANCPR Says:

Think what you want about Newdow, at least he’s getting press and reaction.  Being a non-custodial parent himself, he is sensitive to the indignity an ncp faces in family court, like when you realize you are now “a visitor”, with very limited say about anything to do with your own child.

via SN&R > Local Stories > Family-law makeover > 06.25.09.

The gathering is further proof of the human toll of Minnesota’s 8.4 percent unemployment rate. Hennepin is one of many counties scrambling to deal with a surge in the number of divorced parents requesting reductions, sometimes significant, in their child-support payments.

But what worries administrators might seem odd: Why aren’t more people coming in?

“We are nervous that people don’t realize that, although the court issued their order to pay child support, the court doesn’t monitor their employment status,” said Reggie Wagner, supervisor of Hennepin County’s Family Court Self Help Center (www.mncourts.gov/selfhelp). “The burden is on them to get this started.”

ANCPR Says:

A little further into the article is a note that the filing fee for a modification is $400!  Another thing these bureaucrats don’t seem to understand is that these parents have been threatened with incarceration if they don’t pay up in full, they have been ostracized from their own children, they’ve been beat down, and they don’t have a team of bureaucrats and attorneys ready to file whatever court action is necessary.  This system is as dehumanizing as the welfare system.  It may just collapse in on itself as the country moves further into complete meltdown.

via Parents are urged: Don’t wait to ask for child-support adjustments.

Ginger Weatherspoon, a former Assistant Attorney General in Texas, has filed a lawsuit in Dallas County District Court claiming that she was fired for refusing to sign a false affidavit accusing Judge David Hanschen of wrongdoing.

Judge Hanschen has been at odds with the Texas Attorney General’s office for several years over what he claims are unfair and deceptive practices used to award and collect child support. Some staff in the Attorney General’s office had been collecting affidavits accusing Judge Hanschen of threatening the AG’s office or issuing prejudicial rulings against AAGs. Presumably their intent was to file a complaint of judicial misconduct against Hanschen.

Several lawyers in the AG’s office claim that they were encouraged or coerced into signing the affidavit’s against their will, but Weatherspoon says that she was fired for refusing to cooperate. (more…)

Investigators said 27-year-old Antonio Scott agreed to burn down the house where his ex-girlfriend lived in exchange for a waiver on child support payments.

Scott’s arrest warrant said the house’s occupants, 28-year-old Shonta Green and 24-year-old Derrick Hall, confessed the fire had been set to defraud their insurance carrier.

The warrant said both occupants admitted they “hired” Scott and gave him access to set the house fire. In return, they agreed to waive all owed child support and seek no payments in the future.

via Arson plot: Insurance in lieu of child support | thenewsstar.com | The News Star.

(CNN) — Frank Hatley spent the past year in jail for being a deadbeat dad. But there’s one problem — Hatley doesn’t have any children. And the “deadbeat” label doesn’t fit the 50-year-old either, his supporters say.

Frank Hatley had been ordered to make back payments even after he learned a teenager wasn’t his son.

After a hearing, Hatley was released from the Cook County Jail in south Georgia Wednesday afternoon, with the help of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Superior Court Judge Dane Perkins ruled that Hatley was indigent and should not be jailed for not being able to make child support payments. Perkins postponed a decision on whether Hatley should have to make any more back payments on child-support for a child who is not his.

In June of last year, a judge ordered Hatley to jail for failing to reimburse the state for public assistance that was paid to support his “son,” who, as the court was aware, is not actually his son.

Hatley’s attorney Sarah Geraghty, who filed a motion for his release, called it a case of “blatant unfairness.”

ANCPR Says:

Isn’t it amazing how we consider ourselves a civilized society, and yet this kind of thing can happen?  How is it possible for an unemployed man, who is still actually paying something, to go to jail for falling behind.  The judge that found this man in contempt and who sentenced him should  be dealt with in a way that sends a message.

via Childless man freed after serving time for child support violations – CNN.com.

Last week Alternet published a controversial essay wherein the narrator attended a party thrown to raise money for a friend’s abortion. Numerous conservative bloggers wrote obligatory posts. The piece took heat from the left too. Tracy Clark-Flory posted a worthwhile example. “I hadn’t heard of an abortion party until today. That’s despite growing up in the liberal sanctuary of the San Francisco Bay Area and attending a passionately feminist women’s college,” she wrote. “I’ve seen women unabashedly announce “I had an abortion” to friends and strangers alike, out loud and on T-shirts and bumper stickers, but an abortion party is an entirely new concept to me.”

ANCPR Says:

I was once interviewed for a piece in Glamour magazine on the case some years ago where a guy sued a woman for misappropriating his sperm without his permission.  The other commentator was someone from National Organization for Women.  They, and most of the comments that appeared from readers, took the position that it’s a woman’s right to determine what happens in her body.  It was my position that more and more, we are seeing responsibility foisted on men, but freedoms granted women.  That issue is still playing out the same way, as near as I can tell.  It seems to me, though, that an abortion party is really sick.  This isn’t something to “celebrate”, or to just mention casually.  It just isn’t right.

via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

A fathers’ rights campaigner who spent hours on an M25 gantry dressed as Batman has been jailed for six months.

Fathers 4 Justice activist Geoffrey Hibbert, 48, of Farnborough, Hampshire, spent seven hours on the overhead sign near Heathrow Airport last August.

ANCPR Says:

These guys continue to get headlines.  All the legislative action by various fathers rights groups over the last 20 years have done next to nothing, but at least these guys have got people to take notice and talk about this issue.

via BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | ‘Batman’ protest father is jailed.

ANCPR Says:

Received this from ACFC regarding current legisation before Congress that you can help get passed.  Read on….

Dear Reader,

In our last email covering Fathers Day activities we made a brief mention of the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2009, a federal bill introduced by Senator Bayh of Indiana.  The House companion bill was introduced by Rep. Danny Davis of Illinois.

The legislation focuses primarily on programs to benefit low income fathers and contains a number of positive provisions. (more…)

Frank Hatley has languished in a South Georgia jail for more than a year.  The reason? He failed to reimburse the state for all the public assistance his “son” received over the past two decades.

The problem? Hatley is not the biological father — and a special assistant state attorney general and a judge knew it but jailed Hatley anyway.

ANCPR Says:

Do you notice how often the scenario presents itself: an overzealous prosecutor that apparently is insensitive to the proposition that our so called justice system actually dispense something approaching “justice”.  An old friend of mine lamented some time back, “What do you get when you take out the just from the word justice?  You get just ice!”

via Court knew man jailed for a year for non-support was not child’s father | ajc.com.

ANCPR Says:

Divorce and the well-being of children has become so complicated.  I’ve heard so many stories and perspectives.  I’ve listened to young people expressing relief that their parents divorced… they couldn’t stand the disharmony at home.  I’ve known others who were deeply affected.  One thing I do know: Our wish, as a society, to countenance divorce has thrown our legal system, and I believe, our society, into a tail-spin, because so much of what we call family law turns all traditional and conventional ideals of justice inside out and upside down.
Divorce Adding to Drop Out Rate | WINK News - Southwest Florida | Local & Florida .