Parental Rights – Page 2 – Be a MAN! Take political action to support men.

Men want empathy – not sympathy

In an Op-Ed in the Epoch Times (https://www.theepochtimes.com/who-cares-about-male-suffering_3891890.html). Janice Fiamingo opens with the fact that July 11 is Gender Empathy Gap Day designed to bring awareness to societal indifference to the suffering of men and boys. She goes on to provide multiple examples which I encourage you to find in the article itself. What I found troubling as a MRA/FRA were the comments to “man up” opposite those that stated they had “sympathy” for men and boys.

I post a link to the difference between the empathy called for and the sympathy offered here, https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sympathy-empathy-difference. As Ms Fiamingo point out, what we are looking for is EMPATHY, a simple recognition that men and boys who suffer are treated poorly by both men and women. You don’t have to have been victimized yourself and “feel my pain” and sympathize. You simply need to recognize the disparate treatment that men suffer and recognize it as wrong. As she plainly states this isn’t a victimhood contest between men and women, “it does seek to prompt recognition of our collective inability or unwillingness to recognize the humanity of men”.

The man up and don’t be a soy boy crowd is dismissing the issue out of hand without even looking to see if there is merit to the complaint. Of course attacking the “soy boys” allows them to avoid having to speak to the multitude of facts presented in the piece. Ironically this argument supports Ms. Fiamingo’s position that the societal indifference to the suffering of men exists. Having sympathy also can ignore the problem for feeling my pain and sharing my feelings does not necessarily translate into working to correct the problem which caused my pain.

Being a career law enforcement officer, I have never committed a crime with a female accomplice (it’s frowned on in my profession) and I don’t have sympathy for a criminal sent to prison as I’ve never been one. But if he was sent to prison and she given probation for doing the same crime I do have empathy for his disparate treatment which is obviously bias for being male. And in my 30 year career I was witness to and can attest to preferential treatment given to women by law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges for both minor and major offenses.

In the olden days (1990’s) we used to have fathers rights meetings face to face. The “man up” crowd referred to them as “pity parties” and did not attend, dismissing the plight of others. The sympathy crowd would attend the meetings for the emotional support but wouldn’t get politically active to work to change the system. Regardless of their level of victimization by the system, it was those who had empathy for others who would fight for change. Parents, siblings, and second spouses were often the most vocal for change driven by their empathy for another.

Within the Men’s Rights, Fathers Rights, Parental Rights movements we see the same lack of empathy. Home schoolers and conservative Christians pushed the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act but specifically excluded “non custodial” parents from the act. When I co-founded the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY, Inc. (FaFNY) I was told, by males and females, that I should change the name as it wasn’t “inclusive”even though the mission statement supported equal rights for both parents and both parents rights free from government interference. Bias towards fathers and fathers rights is what allows them to be removed as a parent and their parental rights.

And we have our share of “man ups” in the FRA/MRA movement. After 3 years of litigation I was arrested, suspended from work, dead broke, with $20 in my pocket and the clothes on my back with a borrowed car and place to sleep. With an OOP over my head based on false allegation and violation of that being a felony I tried to get my access exchange at a neutral location and was denied. Faced with certain felony arrest should I try to get my kids at her residence I stopped picking them up and she refused to deliver them. At the next meeting I was told to “fight harder”. “Don’t give up”, in effect to man up and sacrifice myself. You can see those types of comments all over MRA/FRA social media pages. As if manning up and fighting harder with self sacrifice in a system designed to drain you financially and emotionally will somehow result in a different outcome.

I co-founded the NY Men’s Action Network (originally a PAC) and was a principal lobbyist in Albany for 10 years advocating for parental rights and court reform. There are many politicians who knew how bad the system was and didn’t care to reform it. But the bulk of them were uninformed and my factual stories were dismissed with an “it couldn’t be that bad”, certainly my being male and the lack of empathy for men played a part in limiting reform as the vast majority of negative outcomes in (anti) family court and the system occur to men.

In my 25 years of work with FaFNY I have well over 1000 contact hours with individuals and groups in peer support and counseling. The vast majority of persons I counseled wanted empathy; to be listened to, for their story to be believed, and for recognition that they received a raw deal. While they were the victim of the system by having their individual and parental rights destroyed they were not victims themselves looking for others to correct their problems, they were looking to get others to stop causing their problems. This is much different than the “victim” who blames life’s problems on their race, sex, or life circumstance and looks to others to give them something for free to fix it.

Lack of empathy for men and boys has us ignoring the problems of men and boys. The first act to correct a problem is to recognize what the problem is. A lack of empathy and dismissing the problems prevents us from that first act. And in the multitude of problems facing men and boys; suicide, crime victims, disparate incarceration, denial of parental rights, and on and on there is one underlying facet of each of these problems, a lack of empathy for men and boys.

I disagree with Ms. Fiamingo one one thing, I think every day should be a day of empathy for boys and men. I encourage you to read the article and use it to hone your debate skills in support of men and boys. And if you are looking for more information on boys and men you can go to the Global Initiative for Boys and Men https://www.gibm.us/home, or the National Coalition For Men https://ncfm.org.

James Hays, Lt. (Ret) NYS En-Con Police, past President FaFNY, past Director NY MAN.

STOP blaming men; from A beat dead, disenfranchised dad on fatherless day

Being a beat dead, disenfranchised father for 25 years one would think that I would have hardened and gotten used to the anti male posts, articles, and comments about fathers on Father’s Day. But I haven’t, the negativity and chastisements telling fathers how they are supposed to be and blaming fathers for being absent still pisses me off to no end. I suspect it is from the idiocy and propaganda that family break down is the fault of men and not government policies, laws, rules, and regulation which is the cause. Blame which flies in the face of reality.

The most recent installment of idiocy is the Administration for Children and Families “Dadication” campaign (https://fatherhood.gov/dadication) directed at fathers through its fatherhood.gov web site. Of course government needs to push the “responsible fatherhood” agenda as cover for the fact that the disenfranchisement of fathers and the destruction of families is the result of their own programs. In response to a 20% out of wedlock birth rate in the African American community in the 1960’s the Moynihan Report came out (the Johnson Administration) and received immediate backlash for blaming black men.

Johnson’s war on poverty and the developing nanny/daddy state began subsidizing single mother homes. As these federal programs increased (Nixon, Ford, and Carter Administrations) so too did the problem of single mother homes. Adding to the out of wedlock fatherless homes was an increasing divorce rate which was made easier by “no fault” divorce laws. Even though more woman initiated divorce then men the stereotype was the philandering husband abandoning his family for the younger trophy wife. Men were blamed for “abandoning” their children regardless of circumstances.

Many people are unaware that the advocacy for men’s rights and fathers rights goes back to the 1970’s. Groups like the Men’s Defense Association published “The Liberator” newspaper advocating for equality for men in divorce and with child custody. The National Coalition of Free Men, renamed the National Coalition For Men at NCFM.org, was formed in 1977 and is still in existence today. (Full disclosure, I was a member of MDA and am a life member of NCFM). Sadly, blaming men for social ills continued with liberals looking at men as oppressors, “the patriarchy”, and conservatives looking at them a “deadbeats” not living up to their responsibilities.

It was under the Reagan administration the blaming men rose to new heights. A PBS special highlighted a black man who bragged of having 9 children with 9 different mothers and this was used to argue for a Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement to set standards for financial responsibility for fathers. “Deadbeat dads” were to be held responsible to pay back into federal coffers money expended to pay for his children. Title IVd of the Social Security Act was amended to award states money to hold these deadbeats responsible and a massive federal and state bureaucracy was born.

Of course the gynocentric hypocrisy was ignored. The fact that there was 9 tawdry mothers who had children out of wedlock with the same man was overlooked as was the fact that women choose to have out of wedlock children, not men who have no say in a woman’s pregnancy or abortion. Child support payments were now separated from father access to his children, no kids no check used to be the rule. Combined with no fault divorce, a man could be divorced from his children against his will and responsible fatherhood was redefined by government and media as did you pay your child support on time and in full.

Dr. Warren Farrell wrote “the Myth of Male Power” in the 1990’s pointing to the gynocentric hypocrisies. Sanford Braver conducted federally funded research in the 1990’s which he published in “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s” where he debunked the myth of the deadbeat dad. Unfortunately truth was countered by a biased media (see Bernard Goldberg’s book “Bias”) and now a large state and federal bureaucracy funded to take money from fathers and transfer it to federal coffers or direct to mothers.

I (with others) formed the Coalition of Fathers and Families Inc. and the NY Men’s Action Network PAC in the 1990’s and like others hoped the new technologies of email, internet, and web sites would help dispel the myth’s of the deadbeat dad and other negative stereotypes of men but unfortunately well funded government agencies and well funded by government non profits use these same tools to better advantage. Misinformed chivalry meets biased gynocentrism supported by propaganda from government and organizations making a living “fixing” the problem. There is no better example then the “Dadication” Campaign, unfortunately which is but one of many.

I was lifted today when I read an op-Ed in the Epoch Times, “On Fatherhood” by Paul Adams (https://www.theepochtimes.com/on-fatherhood_3863038.html). In it he points out the difference in treatment of mothers on Mother’s Day and fathers on Father’s Day with mothers receiving praise and fathers being admonished. We are making some progress. Unfortunately right along side of it is an article about fathers manning up in a feminized world. On the former article I commented on items which needed to be fixed, on the latter I commented on the mistake of blaming men (which pulled me from other chores to write this blog).

We are now entering the 6th decade of government nanny and daddy state regulation of the family. Each succeeding generation we have seen an increase in fatherless households to now 40% of families in America, 75% in the African American community. We continue to blame men, now “soy boys”, “cellar dwellers” or “gang bangers” for being raised absent their father and admonish them to act different while the new “woke” generation blames everything on men (ignoring how good most of us have it in America).

Government regulation of fathers and families has made marriage a hostile environment for men and we wonder why nobody wants to get married and women lament the “lack of marriageable men”. Child support has gotten so draconian that having a child, in or out of marriage, is a hostile environment for men and we wonder why the birth rate has dropped below 2 children per woman, not large enough to sustain our population. We raise children without their biological father then we wonder why they suffer greater anti-social behaviors. As long as we continue to blame men, give women a pass for not being responsible, and ignore the problems of government regulation of the family, we are not going to see any change for the better.

Lets Red Flag Unconstitutional Red Flag Laws

With all things the devil is in the details and when we look at the details of red flag laws we find they give arbitrary power of your constitutional rights to a government official which is bound to abuse that power. As I am a, now retired, career law enforcement officer, a parental rights activist for over 25 years, and a victim of these red flag laws I can speak to the abuses I’ve both seen and experienced. Here’s my personal horror story which is not unique and my humble opinion on the matter.

I was involved in a bitter 3 year custody battle with my soon to be ex wife (late 1990s). In an effort to gain an advantage she, obviously coached, resorted to filing abuse petitions and in many of them she claimed I threatened her by “reaching back on his waist where he carries his off duty gun.” Luckily for me my neighbors witnessed many of the incidents and testified in family court on my behalf resulting in an order of protection for me against her abusive instigating behavior.

Next she resorted to withholding my parenting time with my children. Due to bias in the system police do not enforce custody orders for non custodial parents even though it is a violation of penal codes and they refer you back to family court for resolution. On one occasion I arrived at the head of her driveway as she had just pulled in with the children and standing in the road calmly demanded my parenting time. She exited the vehicle and left the children in the car with her boyfriend announcing she was going to call the police to which I responded “good, I’ll wait right here in the road.” As the State Trooper arrived she came back out I began walking towards the children expecting the usual mediation and referral back to family court.

I was three steps onto the driveway when I was grabbed by the Trooper and slammed onto the back of her car as my ex quickly spirited the children into the house. The Trooper yelled, “where do you keep your gun” to which I responded it was in an ankle holster and I lifted my leg so he could take possession of the firearm. I then had a few heated words with that Trooper regarding the excessive force in lieu of verbal discussion or commands and my treatment by him. A second Trooper arrived and advised we could go to the barracks which was 5 minutes away and “straighten things out.” I had filed multiple custodial interference complaints at this barracks over the months only to be referred back to family court and thought the same would occur.

Supervisors from my agency began to arrive and I was sitting in the Troopers office with one of them and several Troopers discussing the flawed system when the original Trooper arrived and began to yell at me that I had no right to my children and I was harassing my ex, at which point I advised I would make no statements without my attorney. The Trooper had taken possession of my wallet and he left the office but shortly returned and handed me two appearance tickets for minor violations, trespass and simple harassment, and he threw my wallet at me which I noted was missing my badge and police ID. So I went to my supervisor and asked what my status was and he said suspended without pay.

As I had my court appearance tickets and suspected my pistol was being held as “evidence” I started to leave as the walk from there to my girlfriends house was only 5 minutes. I was grabbed at the back door and told that they had decided to take me to immediate arraignment and off I went to see the Judge. I was “lucky” he said as he wasn’t going to set bail but he did issue an order of protection ,among other things, seizing my firearms. My supervisor then drove me to my house in an adjoining county and took possession of all my work and personal firearms and then to my girlfriends house to get firearms I leave there as that was where I stayed when not working.

Here’s where the ironic hypocrisy begins. My girlfriend was a licensed pistol permit holder and kept a pistol in both night stands on either side of the bed. Additionally her son was a hunter and kept long guns in the house which were readily available to me. I had managed to not be arrested at the 10 plus times she said I “reached to his waist where he keeps his off duty gun” due to insufficient evidence and in 3 years of child custody litigation hadn’t laid a hand on her, much less threatened her but now I was a threat to her and society, the prior false allegations ignored. Amazingly I didn’t take possession of these readily available firearms and go on a rampage. I’m sure the order made me not do it.

I had a copy of my ex’s statement which was included in the charging documents. She claimed I was screaming and swearing and “reached around to my waist where I keep my off duty gun” and she feared I was going to grab it so she ran to call the police. Unknown to her or the Troopers was the fact I recorded every interaction I had with her and this incident was no different and I had an audio recording rebutting her allegations of verbal abuse and the fact my off duty pistol was in an ankle holster and was where I normally carried it undermined the argument I reached for a gun on my waist. I demanded a hearing on the seizure of my firearms and a speedy trial in 30 days which I was entitled to by law but was given neither and in fact had it postponed for month’s.

I scraped together my last $2500 and hired a criminal attorney. We arrived at the court date, an afternoon trial with me the only case docketed. As I was charged with only simple violations I was NOT entitled to a jury trial, the one case docketing certain to keep the process in the dark. I was left in the hall as my attorney went into a room with the Judge, the Assistant District Attorney for that Town, the Assistant District Attorney for Domestic Violence, and my ex. He came back out, visibly shaken, and advised when he told the Judge about the recording he ruled it inadmissible as “there was no chain of custody,” that if I demanded a trial and “if” found guilty he would sentence me to jail time and issue a lifetime order of protection. I had heard through my law enforcement contacts that the Judge was going to sentence me to consecutive 15 day sentences (30 days the maximum) and that I was to not be segregated from the regular population as was customary so I believed he would follow through on his threat.

My attorney advised I could win on appeal but it would cost between $5000 and $10,000 and take about 4 years. I advised him the lifetime order of protection meant I would be out of work and additionally incarceration, and this incident, would be considered a “voluntary” reduction in income and I would be jailed after 6 months for failure to pay child support waiting for the criminal appeal. I told him to cut any deal which would put me back to work. He told me my ex was incessant that I not be given a deal and when she was told that would mean no more child support payments from me she stated she didn’t care and wanted to see me destroyed. He apologized for not being able to stop the worst injustice he had seen in his long legal career, I’ve never seen anyone get as effed as you”, he said and went back in to see if he could cut a deal.

Back out he advised that the Judge had called my agencies Colonel in charge of uniform personnel to OK the deal and I was to be given a one year order of protection and I would be allowed to carry my duty firearm while working but no long guns or shotguns while on duty. I was to plead guilty to trespass and pay a $50 fine. My personal firearms would remain seized. As a condition of employment I had to maintain a home office and I was to leave my issued sidearm at my home office and not to carry a firearm when off duty. Given my girlfriends possession of firearms this in effect meant I was only unarmed from the time I left my home and travelled to hers. Amazingly the order “prevented” me from driving in my police car with my duty weapon and murdering my ex, I expect as I had my uniform on I was an upstanding member of society but when I took it off I turned into a dangerous threat to society. That’s it, I’m sure.

In divorce court I asked that exchanges of the children occur at a public location which could be monitored by neutral parties and was denied. If you violate an order of protection it is a felony and so I couldn’t risk picking up the children and having the false allegation repeated so in effect, the total exclusion of me from my children she had been fighting for three years to achieve was achieved by making these multiple false allegations when one finally stuck. Bankrupt, reputation destroyed, career almost ruined, and faced with a bad choice of returning to work and losing my children or the worse choice of going to jail and losing my children I chose bad over worse.

My suspension without pay from work was for 60 days, conduct unbecoming an officer for arguing with the Trooper. I was out of work for 4 month’s on the order of protection so when they offered to “take 5 days” I said the 60 days should be concurrent with the 4 month’s. When it went to an arbitration hearing the union attorney felt I had a very good argument but I warned him that they would play the domestic abuser card and they did. The hearing examiner split the difference and ordered a 30 days suspension without pay. Once the red flag is thrown it’ll be thrown time and time again when needed.

Those of us who have suffered in family and matrimonial courts have been sounding the alarm about these abuses of due process and violations of civil rights to no avail. Petitions for orders of protection are filed Ex Parte, meaning by one party without the defendant present. Judges think abundance of caution as no Judge wants to be the one who didn’t issue an order and then have something bad happen so fearing blame and having no rebuttal to the charges they almost never deny the order. Once the order is served any anger or indignation at the violation of your rights will be used as evidence to show you are angry and a danger. You suffer the costs of attorneys to retain your God given rights and the system will drag on painstakingly slow as you suffer financially, emotionally, and reputation-ally.

If you think it can’t happen to you look up “Cowboy’s for Trump” and the plight of their leader Couy Griffin, a New Mexico elected official, who “entered a restricted area” at the Capitol protest on Jan. 6 and held a prayer session outside of the Capitol Building. Regardless how you feel about his political views and alleged simple trespass on restricted capitol grounds his physical arrest and incarceration for 3 weeks with no bail seems extreme on its face. And when he was finally released, RED FLAG, his right to possess firearms was revoked in spite of the fact he has not been violent. When he received multiple death threats the Judge allowed him to possess firearms in his home but not his car or in public. If he’s not a danger to violate that order then the order itself is unnecessary and additionally threats against him are valid away from or in the home.

The view that an order of protection prevents violence flies idiotic in the face of reality as the violent acts are felonies and anyone who is willing to commit violence and face years in prison isn’t worried about violating an order which has less than a one year term. Orders “preventing” the possession of firearms similarly only work on people who legally own firearms and weren’t going to commit acts of violence in the first place. “Red Flag” is a government misnomer for “violate due process” under the guise of government “protecting” society by violating the civil rights of an individual who has not committed any crime and has not been allowed to rebut the allegations against him. Any angry exaggerated excited utterance or public post not meant to be taken literally, such as “Communists should be taken out and shot,” opens the door to anyone with a grudge, or government themselves, to RED FLAG the persons civil rights.

The fathers rights and parental rights movement dates back to the 1960s where advocates have since then and to today been complaining about the lack of due process, ex parte allegations taken as fact (Red Flag), unnecessary orders of protection issued, and individual civil rights violated on a daily basis. Legislators create misnamed bills “to protect the public” which in effect undermine civil rights and due process. Executive branches overcharge, incarcerate with excessive or no bail, issue ex parte orders of protection, and use overbearing and unnecessary police tactics to intimidate citizens. Judicial accountability is an area ignored by most of the public, courts are now where civil rights go to die. Our lack of due diligence to protecting civil rights under the guise of protecting the public and “preventing” crime is now undermining liberty for all of us. Us parental rights activists would like to welcome the rest of America to the unconstitutional nightmare.

James Hays,

Lt. (Ret) NY En-Con Police, past President of the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY, Inc. (FaFNY) and past Director of the NY Men’s Action Network (NYMAN)

The Daddy State is Replacing Fathers and Undermining Marriage

Not a day goes by where we don’t see a person on TV talking about the problems of father absence and out of wedlock births. Do a search for “Responsible Father” and up pops web sites and government programs directed at men and talking about their responsibility to their children. As a 25 year father rights activist I am well aware of these programs having attended state and national seminars put on by government promoting responsible fathers all aimed at fixing fathers. Unfortunately they are all the same and doomed to failure for they fail to properly identify the problem and keep blaming men and ignoring the federal government and states as the culpable parties.

The 1935 Social Security Act (SSA) included federal dollars for Aid to Dependent Children. At that time most black mothers worked so the program was aimed primarily at white mothers with a deceased, absent, or unable to work husband. In the early 1960s civil rights activists and welfare reform activists worked to eliminate biases within the system and black mother participation increased. Fearing the program would reduce marriages the name was changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1962. In 1964 President Johnson began his war on poverty campaign which added food stamps and medicaid for poor people. Thus the role of father as financial provider was usurped.

In 1967 the federal government required states to establish paternity and also to extend benefits of unemployed male parents. In 1968 the Supreme Court ruled that the AFDC benefits could not be reduced for a man in the house if they were not deemed to be an “actual or substitute parent.” In 1981 the Supreme Court ruled that a step-fathers income be considered. Thus providing a financial incentive to mothers to not live with their children’s father and to not marry any future significant others.

In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan saw that there was a crisis in African American families as 23.6% of births were to unmarried mothers. He also noted that historically the rate of increase or decline in African American male unemployment paralleled the rate of AFCD cases but in 1962 the lines crossed with AFDC cases going up as unemployment claims went down. He warned against Defining Deviancy Down as single mother houses were becoming socially acceptable. When he published his findings in “The Negro Family: the Case for National Action” he received criticism from civil rights leaders for labelling blacks. The report was not put into policy by Johnson due to this.

In 1960 the birth control pill was approved for use in the United States giving women reproductive choice. In 1970 abortion was legalized. Men have no similar effective temporary birth control method nor means to “abort” an unwanted pregnancy. If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy she can terminate the pregnancy regardless of the wishes of the man. If a woman decides to carry the pregnancy to term, even if she lied to the man about her reproductive status, and even if he doesn’t want to be a father, she can establish him as the father and he will be held financially responsible for the child.

The Feminist movement began in the 1960s and originally touted itself as an equal rights movement but the radical feminist movement split off from that blaming “patriarchal white men” for “oppression” of women. It portrayed the view that men were abusers of women and children. The theme of the feminist was women don’t need men. Labor participation increased for women throughout the 60’s with 1963s Equal Pay Act and 1965s establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and prohibitions on sex discrimination in employment. While originally about choice, the movement looks down and denigrates women who choose a traditional nuclear family over a career, encouraging young girls to forego the former and choose the latter as the social norm.

Historically the person wanting out of a marriage or who committed adultery lost custody of the children. In the late 1800s the courts increasingly relied on the Tender Years Doctrine holding that young children be placed with the mother and older children with the father. In 1970 California passed the first “no fault” divorce law and this trended across the land. In reality all one needed to do to escape a marriage was to file for legal separation in family court, live apart for a year, then file for divorce under the abandonment statutes. New York was the last state to enact no fault divorce in 2010. Child custody changed in the 1970s abandoning the Tender Years Doctrine in favor of The Best Interests of the Child standard. Thus decision making on custody was placed at the courts discretion. Even with this standard the mother custody rate after divorce was well over 85% due to judicial bias against men. Divorce rates jumped to about 50% of all marriages.

The combination of subsidized single mother homes and easy divorces saw divorces and father absent homes rise as did AFDC claims. In 1988 President Reagan signed the Family Support Act establishing a federal Office of Child Support Enforcement thus removing states rights in this area. He ordered the states to have support guidelines in effect but left the states only one year to establish them. Each State was to also establish an Office of Child Support Enforcement. While labelled as “child support” the massive bureaucratic program was designed to establish paternity of children receiving AFDC and hold the father financially responsible and return the money to federal coffers. And thus the “Deadbeat Dad” was created.

Lacking time to establish reasonable child support guidelines the states just enacted the example guidelines provided by the federal government, an income shares model which taxed the “non custodial parent” (most often the father) 17% of his income for one child and 25% for two (with some variation in states). The assessment is pre tax dollars so the payer is responsible for the income tax in addition to the income transfer and one child is 35% and two 48% of gross income. In later years draconian collection methods were implemented, including incarceration. Fathers making close to 3 figure salaries can usually make the payments and still get by but a father making under $60,000 is reduced to living below poverty levels. Studies have shown that the vast majority of “deadbeats” are really dead broke, inability to pay the number one reason for default. Incarceration disproportionately affects poor fathers who tend towards young fathers and fathers of color.

In the 1990s Sanford Braver conducted the only federal research on child support and the family and he published his findings in “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s.” This, and subsequent private studies, have shown that about 80% of divorces are filed by women with the number one reason being “we grew apart”. The divorce rate peaked at about 50% of all marriages and has been declining as the marriage rate is rapidly declining. After divorce mothers obtain about 50% of the marital assets, usually more, and gain custody of children in about 85% cases. Worse, there are virtually no access enforcement avenues for a non custodial parent denied access by the custodial parent, and 50% of women admitted to having interfered with a fathers access to his children.

In out-of-wedlock births the support guidelines provide a perverse incentive for women to have multiple children with multiple fathers as two 17% payers (34%) is higher than one father paying for two (25%). Poor young men have no disincentive to having out-of-wedlock children as they have no income to be taxed. And those with out-of-wedlock children are incentivized to work off the books, crime and drug distribution two good off the books income earners. Access to their children can be had by providing direct financial support to the mother in exchange for access. And we are now in the third and forth generations of children raised in single mother homes, thus establishing it as the societal norm for 1/2 the population.

As government “helped” the family these past 6 decades we saw marriage decline, divorce and out -of-wedlock births increase and now 40% of children live absent their father, close to 75% of African American fathers. I think it’s plain to see, it isn’t fathers that need to be taught responsibility.

James Hays, Lt. (Ret) NY En-Con Police, past President of the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY, Inc. (FaFNY) and past Director of the NY Men’s Action Network (NYMAN).

Disenfranchised Conservative Fathers – Keep Fighting

Those of us who have suffered oppressive government and the child support bureaucracy; (anti) family court, judicial denial of parental rights and ultimately all or our rights, denial of free speech, and vilification as “deadbeats” for being “beat dead” and disenfranchised by the system are not surprised that this system has grown to do the same to others. Us Conservatives activist father and family advocates had 4 years to bring the issue of Title IVd and the disenfranchisement of fathers to the attention of the Trump administration and we failed. But make no mistake that while the “right” ignores us the radical left, part of this new administration, is out to destroy us. BLM, Antifa, and socialist democrats ALL have Marxist anti family positions which will make it worse for men/fathers/families. We need to continue to fight back.

Conservatives need to be like Father and Family Activists have been for the past 30 years and realize the battle continues daily. Perhaps it is my 25+ years of advocacy for parental rights which has me see the recent elections more as a minor loss of a battle than the loss of the war, for indeed, the battle continues and the war is lost only if we surrender and fail to protect the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, daily, weekly 24/7/365 year after year. And to this end I believe that the recent fraudulent election has revealed who is the enemy and also awakened the great army of American Citizen’s who believe in individual rights and responsibilities granted to us by God.

We should recognize that the Presidency was not lost but stolen in a fraudulent election due to unconstitutional changes to methods and manners of voting in the swing states combined with flagrant ballot stuffing and other irregularities. But this is correctable as the state legislatures can meet and change these rules. We need to begin this process immediately. In states with Governors or elective bodies that refuse we need to push a grass roots voting effort to primary them out of office or win outright in general elections. STATES SHOULD MANDATE IN STATE CONSTITUTIONS THAT EACH LEGISLATURE MEET AND AUTHORIZE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THAT STATE! This will allow them to investigate and stop fraud in the future.

The “President Elect” is a tottering old fool and a career outlaw politician. Certainly the VP will be looking to replace him, the timing and method of which is bound to cause division in their ranks. Conservatives need to hold this administration accountable and keep the pressure on it for every one of its failures and for every attempt to violate the rights of Citizen’s. Let there be no public appearance by any of their representatives which does not receive a rally in opposition. Pitch the socialist democrats against the “moderates”, Antifa and BLM have no love of this “President”. Use their own methods against them where legal.

The Judicial system has failed us and the Constitution. Federal Judges readily legislate from the bench but when called upon to determine Constitutionality they took a pass, to the last using procedural maneuvers to dismiss election lawsuits to delay past the counting of the electoral votes. The Supreme Court shamefully dismissed a suit filed by one state against another. As the court of original jurisdiction they were bound by federal law to address the case but they too used procedural maneuvers to dismiss the case. What good is a “Conservative Court” if they don’t act? We need to put pressure on the Judiciary and when they act political we need to call them out and protest their actions.

The election has also outed the milquetoast RINO’s who failed to support our President in battling the fraud. They further paint all Trump supporters at the rally with a broad brush of guilt for the actions of a very few individuals, and these few infiltrated by Antifa thugs. They now present themselves as “peacemakers” to bring the nation together. Wishing to be recognized as doves they are serpents, traitors to true Conservatives and supporters of the Constitution. ALL patriots should withhold their donations from the National Republican Party and donate directly to true Conservative Republicans. And they need to be DRIVEN FROM OFFICE IN PRIMARIES.

While we have lost the Senate, most likely to another fraudulent election, and failed to gain the house the promised “big blue wave” never materialized. Their majority is a slim majority. While they may kill the filibuster and pack the supreme court these actions will only serve to further alienate them from the American Citizen’s, the majority of which do not support that. There are 34 U.S. Senate seats up for a vote in 2022 and we need to dump the RINO’s in primaries and win 17 general elections a a minimum. And with a slim dem majority in the house Conservative Republican control is a reality.

To this end THE ELECTION NEEDS TO START TODAY. Find and support true conservative candidates and donate your time and money to get them elected. We also need to look to make gains in putting true Conservative Republican’s in control of state houses and Governorships. Primary out the globalists like the Secretary of State and Governor in Georgia and replace them with true Conservatives.

Unlike the tea party which pushed the Republicans to do right then fizzled due to lack of a national leader, this movement has a leader in Donald J. Trump. He has committed to continuing the fight to drain the swamp and his loyalty to us deserves loyalty back. Additionally, this movement isn’t a one horse show with up and coming leaders showing their mettle; DeSantis, Gaetz, Jordan, and many others come immediately to mind. Should President Trump decide not to run in 2024 we have a large field of true Conservative Republican’s to choose from. We need to fully support and fund their political activities.

Fire fake news. Sites like Epoch Times, One America News, Tucker Carlson, and The Bongino Report among others needs to be our go to sources of information. Fire twitter, facebook, and youtube TODAY and replace them with Rumble and Parler. As I write this Google has removed Parler’s app and Apple is doing the same. Amazon is throwing them off their server. Once they have rebuilt on another server you can use your browser to go to and get on them direct. Use DuckDuckGo as your search engine and get a Virtual Privacy Network (VPN), I use Express VPN. We need to develop more Conservative American businesses such as banks, credit card companies, and manufacturing with direct internet sales so we can break ourselves from the monopoly of globalist monopolies like Amazon and Walmart. BUY LOCAL AND BUY AMERICAN! As consumers we can vote with our purchases and dollars.

Republican states need to follow the lead of Florida and Governor DeSantis regarding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Virus. Open schools, churches and businesses and get the Conservative states economies moving. NO MORE LOCK DOWNS AND CLOSURES! Resist any and all actions by the federal government to restrict the Citizen’s of your state. High risk people (like me) can hunker down until the vaccine is widely available but there’s no reason to restrict young healthy people. States, like NY and CA are seeing people fleeing those states, let them stay locked down and accept the industries and businesses which are fleeing the arbitrary closures.

The assault on President Trump may be a blessing in disguise. From spying on a candidate and then a sitting President to the Russia Hoax and special prosector then impeachment, the CCP Virus and illegal restrictions on Citizen’s, and finally a fraudulent election, A COUP, to remove the President we now know how far the globalists will go to undermine America and more importantly they have all exposed themselves. They showed their tolerance for violence in the acceptance and encouragement of rioting, burning and looting, which they then portray as “mostly peaceful protests”. They use their echo chamber and propaganda machine to blame conservatives for what they are doing in an attempt to re-write history, a system of lies and deceit which would make any communist proud.

Make no mistake, we are in an information, government control, and violent civil disobedience civil war to take down the U.S. Constitution and insert a globalist oligarchy controlled in the U.S. by home grown oligarch’s and social democrat political elites. They get rich and have freedoms we don’t, rules for thee but not for me, this while the middle class disappears and the poor get poorer as their numbers increase making more people dependent on government. They will use violence against you, including the violence of non prosecution of your attackers and prosecution of you for defending yourself. While I’m not supporting violence and uncivil actions, we need to recognize we need to play the game by the rules in force and not back down from violence and stand up to uncivil acts with our own civil disobedience. We need to give as good as we get. And if we stay the course we can get the U.S. Constitution, The Bill of Rights, the Rule of Law, and America back again.

Jay Hamilton

The answer is you, the time is now

Organizational infighting, no organizational cooperation towards a specific goal, and a lack of individual support are killing the men’s rights/fathers rights/parental rights movement. Now that I have 25 years of activism under my belt with a multitude of organizations (many of which have come and gone) I can offer up my personal experience as an example of individuals not supporting the cause and worse, individuals undermining the cause.

It’s 1995 and I got whacked with the standard triple order, a “Temporary Order of Protection (TOP) restricting access to my children, a “Temporary” Custody Order for my (soon to be) ex wife, and the “Temporary” Child Support Order. Sound familiar? This when the internet hadn’t yet been invented and email was a new thing which most didn’t have. I found a newspaper notice of a meeting for the “Fathers Rights Association NYS” (FRANYS) and attended my first meeting of the local Capital District chapter (FRA-CD).

The first meeting was attended by the President of the local chapter and me. That’s it. I did get a load of good information from him to help me individually as a pro se litigant. Subsequent meetings would have at most 3 or 4 people and for the most part consisted of people relaying their personal injustices suffered, each story worse than the one before. The statewide meeting was to be in our area in a couple of month’s and I attended that, about 10 people at that one. I sat down and when attendance was taken of the chapter delegates voting on the state board there was none from my chapter so I was sat as the voting member. I’m 4 months into the process and sitting on a policy board.

The organization, a 501c3 non profit, lacked any consistent lobbying of government for change and had NO political action committee or lobbyist. The monthly meetings consisted of people looking for help on their individual cases and upon hearing the system was so bad that they would end up with the “Standard NY Order” of every other weekend visits which weren’t enforced and payment of excessive child support which would leave them personally at the poverty level most attended 2 or 3 meetings and never joined to organization as a member. But every month a group of new initiates to injustice would show up looking for help.

The organization held a lobby day at the NYS Legislature each spring and I attended my first in 1996. Attendance was less than 50 people, this in a state with a population of about 20 million where it is estimated there were 2.5 million plus non custodial parents. It was disorganized with few meetings between organization leaders and the leaders of the legislature and important committees. Many attendees showed up in shorts and t-shirts and it was not uncommon for a meeting with a legislator to turn into an insult fest with legislators shouted at for what they haven’t done to help out. Once the event was over there was no lobbying presence and outside of this legislative activity there was no interaction with state agencies or the executive and judicial branches of government.

After 3 years of litigation I lost my kids to alienation in 1999. Instead of dealing with individual injustices I decided to get involved to change things for the better for everybody. I was elected President of FRA-CD and also made the Chair of the Legislative Committee with FRANYS. I had weekly meetings with legislative leaders and began lobbying the Governors Office and the Office of Court Administration which oversees NYS Courts. I was joined by FRA-CD members Debby Fellows and Randall L. Dickinson and we 3 became the principle advocates and lobbyists in NYS.

In 2001 we lobbied the NYS Senate Leader for money for a fatherhood center and were to receive a grant of $25,000 the first year. But some in the state leadership feared that FRA-CD, the largest chapter of 6, would break from it so they “decertified” the FRA-CD leadership. They then filed felony theft charges against me for paying the chapters outstanding bills “without authorization”. The frivolous charges were dismissed at grand jury, but not without 6 month’s under the color of charges which resulted in the Senate pulling support for the Fatherhood Center.

The removal of FRD-CD did result in the chapter going independent and the Coalition of Fathers and Families NY, Inc. (FaFNY) was formed as a statewide membership organization from the leaders of the FRA-CD Chapter. FRANYS and its chapters ceased activity except for local in person meetings and folded all together a few years later. We chose to call ourselves a coalition as our focus was going to be on educating and lobbying NYS Government in all branches and at all levels and in doing so would bring together the various organizations in NYS to work on goals and objectives such as shared parenting and court reform.

We held a statewide lobby day in April of every year to bring in the groups to lobby for our legislation. In addition we held weekly meetings with legislators, staff, the Governors Office and NYS Court Administration. I delivered flyers and handouts to the entire legislature EVERY week, walking the floors and delivering them personally. We wrote op-ed articles and appeared on TV and Radio. But to maintain this level of work we were expending 30-40 hours a week, this on top of our full time jobs. Maintaining membership lists got to be an administrative burden and we changed to a Board run organization which freed up more time to lobby. We affiliated nationally with the American Coalition of Fathers and Children (ACFC). We held many successful protests with media coverage and were successful in changing many policies and rules for the better and we blocked a lot of anti-father legislation.

In 2006 we started a push to get shared parenting enacted. The powers opposed managed to hold the bill in the Children and Families Committee of the Assembly and we focused our attention there. Through affiliation with ACFC we used Glenn Sacks “His side” computer-fax and developed a “Thumbs Up!” campaign to bombard members of the committee daily and continually to bring the bill up for a vote this in addition to collecting signatures across the state. Month’s of work culminated in a scheduled vote but opposition by Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver resulted in him horse trading favors for no votes and a slim majority of both parties together held the bill, in effect killing it that year.

The work load took a toll on those with the organization and combined with changing life circumstances the leaders took a needed break from organizing and lobbying. Unfortunately no persons or organizations have stepped up to fill the void in lobbying state government. The National Parents Organization is pushing for Bill A0918 in the NYS Assembly a shared parenting in temporary orders bill and a quick search shows Shared Parenting S02916 Helming, and S04260 Parker in the Senate. A04005 Weprin, same as S02584 Lanza which is the Family Court Reform Act (a FaFNY sponsored bill) is still in both houses. All bills sit with few multi or co-sponsors showing a lack of lobbying for enactment.

I think my experience supports my position of a lack of support and organizational cooperation. I don’t want to sound all gloom and doom though. Given that organizations are staffed almost 100% by unpaid volunteers and we represent a group of people who have been financially wiped out, and usually remain so for many years, the advocacy organizations have made great headway. In 1995 you would have been given every other weekend Friday at 5 to Sunday at 6 and one mid week 4 hour visit with NO enforcement for interfering with that little time and it was unheard of for a father to actually get custody. Child Support Enforcement and courts treated you like the enemy, now not so much. So things have improved, but there’s much more to do.

Just as emails and internet changed our organization from meeting in a physical location once a month, social media and high speed internet are changing the way groups “meet” and discuss things. Information which took us month’s to find or distribute now can be disbursed in minutes with the worlds information available immediately on your smart phone. That said, it is a bit shameful that in this day and age of instant communication we have no organizational cooperation towards a specific goal, no individual participation in action items like contacting legislators, and legislation like shared parenting which has about 85% support of the population sits idle with no organizational or grass roots advocacy.

If you agree the system needs changing the person to do that is you and the time to do it is now.

James Hays, (Ret) NYS En-Con Police Lt., Co-founder and past President FaFNY, past Director NY MAN, life member NCFM, past administrator with Friends of Protection For Men.

A letter to Courts and Federal and State Child Support Collections

While directed to NYS the following letter can be used as a template in other states with minor modifications.

Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks, NYS Unified Court System 25 Beaver St. New York, NY 10004

Commissioner Michael P. Hein, Office of Temporary Disability Assistance 40 N. Pearl St. Albany, NY 12243

Commissioner Scott Lekan, ACF, Office of Child Support Enforcement 330 C Street, S.W. Washington, DC 20201

Dear Sirs;

I am writing on behalf of the New York State child support payers for information and with suggestions to help in these trying times. With 10 million jobless claims in the past 2 weeks alone it is apparent that the system is going to see massive filings to reduce payments due to loss of income through no fault of the payers. I am asking what measures are being put into place to ensure that everyone get due process and no one falls through the cracks and is penalized by the system?

I am unsure if relief payments will be seized in the Federal and State Tax Offset Programs for payers in arrears and look for clarification of this fact. Also, how is the per child payment to families to be calculated, to those that get the child deduction on the 2018 tax filing? Or “custodial” and “non custodial” status on custody agreements? If circumstances changed after the 2018 tax year how would parents ensure the child relief payment gets distributed correctly?

I see NYC Family Court allows virtual courts, is this being expanded outside of NYC due to the current travel restrictions? And to prevent persons from having to travel unnecessarily, what measures are being put into place to allow filing of documents by electronic means such as email or web page platforms with fill in the blank forms? Are filing rules being loosened to allow electronic filings in place of time stamped documents?

Government is asking mortgage holders, landlords, and creditors to delay collection methods and to not apply interest and penalties for missed or late payments. Is the Child Support Collection System going to do the same?

Certainly some vindictive parents will use the shelter in place order to deny a parent their parenting time with the children. What system of expedited filing and methods for enforcement is in place? Given that the children are not attending school and both parents are likely at their separate homes, either out of work or working from home, what is the procedure to handle the filings for physical shared parenting as parents are now equally available to parent their children during this crisis?

I suggest that the system stop all methods of punitive arrears collection (suspension of licenses, garnishments, etc.), including suspending the Federal and State Tax Offset Programs for the duration of the crisis. We all know the number one reason a person doesn’t pay is inability due to poverty and the current financial mess is certainly bound to add many more to those unable to pay.

I suggest that judges waive mandatory filing rules so that filings can be considered based upon a preponderance of the evidence of the actual date of change and not the date of filing. Also, the system needs to accept electronic filings to prevent both court personnel and users from having to interact in person subjecting all to possible infection by this dreaded virus. And a system of conference calling needs to be in place of physical hearings.

I close thanking you for your attention to these matter and I look forward to hearing from you. I am available by email, through the web site, or by phone on request.

Sincerely,

Sent electronically and hard mail

CC: Web site, social media postings

Parental Rights letter to the SCOTUS

October 21, 2019

Justices of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the United States, 1 First St., NE, Washington DC 20543

It has always been my humble opinion that a person not need a law degree nor approval of the Bar to read and understand the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights and as I’ll never practice law nor have the opportunity to argue for parental rights in a court of law I thought to write you direct. I’ll save the full legal citations as you are most likely familiar with them and I’ll look to present the facts as they occur on the ground in courts of law to individual citizen’s each and every day. Perhaps it will end up unread in the recycling bin or ‘circular file” but I thought the effort at educating on the injustices in the current state of family law and law practice worth the effort.

The court has long held that parental rights are fundamental rights (Prince v. Massachusetts, Meyer v. State of Nebraska) which should not be removed only after cause and under strict scrutiny and most recently in Troxel V. Granville a “custodial” parents rights were upheld in an action involving grand parents access. However, in Elk Grove v. Newdow the court held that a father didn’t have standing to sue on behalf of his daughter as he was “non custodial”. Both these decisions were wrong as in both circumstances cause was not shown and strict scrutiny was not applied in the removal of parental rights.

The errors occur in misunderstanding how a parent gets the label of “non custodial” and “custodial” parent. Further the error sits in the unconstitutional nature of todays current family regulatory system which provides the incentives to remove the rights of one parent, naming them a “non” parent for financial gain by the state itself. The system is driven by unconstitutional federal policies, which interfere with states rights which are then put into place by a large bureaucracy made up of the states executive and judicial branches which then violates parental rights for financial gain.

Two parents walk into family court with equal parental rights with the interference in the family at the request of one parent who is looking to gain “custody” at the expense of the other parent and which most often is not based on that parents fitness to be a parent. Even though the modern family usually now has both parents working and raising their child as caregivers the courts rely on a rubber stamp cookie cutter approach labelling the mother “custodial” and the father “non custodial”. Worse the father is often labelled a “visitor” and allowed visitation of every other weekend and one mid week after school visit for 4 hours. On top of this, even though he was providing for his children financially, he is now ordered to transfer income to the other parent for “child support”.

In New York State they call this arrangement the “Standard NY Order”. Often the language used in the order is phrased to make the non custodial parent think they can still be a parent involved in raising their child with wording like “joint legal custody”, “the parents will have joint decision making and consult on major decisions” while noting “primary physical possession is with the mother”. But in practice, as every non custodial parent now recognizes, the “consult” can be a flat “no” with no means to litigate or appeal the decision making of the other parent and there is no “joint legal custody” as a non custodial parent has no standing.

Reduced to a few days a month visitor, with no decision making over your child’s actions, doesn’t leave much time for a parent to convey their heritage and beliefs and exclude those you are opposed to. Regardless of an individuals personal opinions on the diametrically opposed religious views in this case, it is not hard to imagine that the beliefs of Michael Newdow were overshadowed by the beliefs of his child’s mother given the disproportionate amount of time he spends with her. The Supreme Court talks a good game of affirming parental rights in Troxel but the Elk Grove case legitimizes the decisions of a lower court to remove Michael Newdow’s parental rights without cause and without strict scrutiny by denying him standing on behalf of his child.

Under the guise of collecting funds from parents who have “abandoned” their children the federal government formed the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement and mandated that each state have a similar office. Under Title IVd of the Social Security Act the federal government provides perverse financial incentives to the states to make “non custodial” parents by reimbursing for the number of paternity establishments, number of child support orders entered, amount collected versus amount owed, arrears collected, and the cost of the program (collections versus expenses).

Thus states are rewarded for having a larger collection system and more “non custodial;” payers in the system. The income transfer from parent to parent is not based upon the needs of the child but as a percentage of income. Indeed, there is not even an accounting system so the non custodial parent can ensure the money is being spent for the child’s benefit as a “best interest of the child” standard would certainly require. As in the label of “non custodial” parent the income transfer is unconstitutional as it is done as a matter of course, administratively, with no showing cause to interfere in the parents financial decisions for the child such as the child is living in poverty or a failure of the non custodial parent to financially support the child.

Imagine, if you will, you come home to your family and are met at the door by a policeman with a temporary order of protection (TOP) even though aside from a few heated arguments there is no family violence. You are allowed 5 minutes to get your personal items and get out of your house. Any firearms you have are seized by the police and the TOP prevents you from buying firearms. You’ll have to cancel that hunting trip with you father this year. You are denied any contact with your children, even prohibited from attending public school or sporting events. In a pinch you go to your parents for a temporary place to stay. Ironically, you have access to your fathers firearms there. You are advised by the courts to not talk about the case to anyone as a matter of “privacy”.

You file in family court for “visitation” with your children and removal of the TOP. You are given supervised visitation at a facility approved by this court and are advised you have to pay for it. You are ordered to attend alcohol/drug evaluations and anger management classes at a facility approved by this court at your expense. The Judge sets temporary child support with income executions to start immediately. You are given 2 court dates months away, one for custody and another for support. You are advised you have to provide personal and private records and information on demand.

You attend the child support hearing in front of a magistrate. He advises you have to pay, pre tax, 25% of your gross pay for 2 kids and the math reveals you are going to pay 48% of your take home pay. He further advises that you are getting free rent and imputes income for that raising your payments to 55% of your take home pay. Even though you have always kept your kids on your health insurance they issue an order to do that. He further advises you weren’t paying enough these past months and are in arrears for $2000. You are not allowed to pay it off directly and advised the system automatically deducts arrears according to their formula. Once the arrears are turned into the state child support office they automatically turn you in to credit reporting agencies and issue an order to seize your tax return if any and you passport is revoked.

At the initial hearing the Judge advised the parties if it went to trial “nobody would be happy” and he told the attorneys to settle it. The attorney tells you as a father, a “non custodial” parent, you’ll get the “standard order” of every other weekend, one day mid week visit, two weeks in the summer and alternating Christmas and Thanksgiving. You won’t do better at trial, in fact it’ll be worse and you could lose contact with your children. Bankrupt, fearing the total loss of your children, you go to court and cut the deal.

All of this is widespread and occurs in this fashion in virtually every family court across the United States on a daily basis. You can visit any parental rights, fathers rights, or mothers rights web page and see thousands upon thousands of cases complaining of this treatment in whole or in part. In addition to the loss of your parental rights your rights under the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution have been violated.

Those of us parental rights advocates who are originalists have long argued that a court which removes our parental rights without due process and the federal system which transfers our income to the other parent under the guise of supporting our children are both unconstitutional acts. In Elk Grove Justice Stevens states;

“One of the principal areas in which this Court has customarily declined to intervene is the realm of domestic relations. Long ago we observed that “[t]he whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife, parent and child, belongs to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States.” In re Burrus, 136 U.S. 586, 593— 594 (1890). See also Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 587 (1989) (“[D]omestic relations are preeminently matters of state law”); Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 435 (1979) (“Family relations are a traditional area of state concern”). So strong is our deference to state law in this area that we have recognized a “domestic relations exception” that “divests the federal courts of power to issue divorce, alimony, and child custody decrees.” Ankenbrandt v. Richards, 504 U.S. 689, 703 (1992). We have also acknowledged that it might be appropriate for the federal courts to decline to hear a case involving “elements of the domestic relationship,” id., at 705, even when divorce, alimony, or child custody is not strictly at issue:

“This would be so when a case presents ‘difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the result in the case then at bar.’ Such might well be the case if a federal suit were filed prior to effectuation of a divorce, alimony, or child custody decree, and the suit depended on a determination of the status of the parties.” Id., at 705—706 (quoting Colorado River, 424 U.S., at 814). Thus, while rare instances arise in which it is necessary to answer a substantial federal question that transcends or exists apart from the family law issue, see, e.g., Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 432—434 (1984), in general it is appropriate for the federal courts to leave delicate issues of domestic relations to the state courts.”

The court itself is making contradictory statements and rulings, especially in light of the unconstitutional federal governments interference in the family. If there is deference to the states then how is the federal office of child support enforcement not unconstitutional? Here the federal government under Title IVd of the Social Security Act mandated that states have a system in place to collect child support but did not mandate that it include strict scrutiny before denying one parents their parental rights by naming them a non custodial child support payer. Which as we see in the Newdow case results in the removal of all parental rights without cause.

In the Troxel case the grand parents were acting en loco parentis for their son, a “non custodial” father who’s case mirrors the general treatment of the courts outlined above. Additionally, suicide among males increases about ten fold after a divorce/separation due to the denial of due process and the violation of rights. Certainly the fathers reliance on his parents , living in their house and exercising “visitation” there, evidenced the grand parents en loco parentis status. By rendering a decision in the Troxel case the U.S. Supreme issued a de facto child custody decision denying Troxel the right to continue en loco parentis.

Were we in a system in which rights were given to the people by the government and it was mandated that government work in the best interest of the child the ruling in child custody cases would be for a shared parenting arrangement with both parents contributing emotional and financial support to the children directly with little or no government interference, as occurs in a married 2 biological residential parent family for this is the arrangement which shows the best outcomes for child welfare, health, education and growth.

But we are in a Constitutional Republic which guarantees individual rights. I agree with Justice Stevens and prior Supreme Court Rulings which state that a “domestic relations exception” that “divests the federal courts of power to issue divorce, alimony, and child custody decrees” is consistent with the 10th Amendment. But the U.S. Supreme Court must uphold the rights of parents so that they are NOT removed without cause and a showing of strict scrutiny before the parental rights are removed. And absent a showing of abuse or neglect, in cases of disputed custody the courts should find for split residential and legal custody to preserve both parents rights.

My parental rights were a God given right and courts “issuing” them is akin to them issuing me the right to life or liberty and in “issuing” this right to the other parent they are in fact removing my parental rights in addition to removing my right to liberty. It is a well recognized adage in law enforcement to “do the right thing” in the application of laws to our citizens. In respecting parental rights, from the U.S. Supreme Court to the states family and matrimonial courts to the administrative tribunals of the executive branches for the past 30 plus years there has been a great unconstitutional failure to do the right thing for children, mothers, and fathers.

Publius

Letter to Heritage Foundation to Support PRRA

The following is a templated letter to Kay Coles James, President of the Heritage Foundation with a cc to your Senators and Congressman. You can cut and copy the letter onto your letterhead or print it from NY MAN (be sure to sign it and write in your representatives names) and mail that but include a hand written personal note. Send the letter to the Heritage Foundation with a CC your 2 Senators (find them here) and to your Congressman (find him/her here).

Date:

Kay Coles James, President,

Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE Washington DC 20002-4999

Dear President James;

I am writing to encourage the Heritage Foundation to support and work for enactment of the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act (PRRA) which I am asking, by copy of this letter, my federal representatives to sponsor. In the years since originally proposed we have seen a never ending creep in erosion of parental rights. Well meaning but misguided teachers, child protective workers, police, and family court judges increasingly apply their standards in the place of parents. Once reserved to the strict scrutiny standard agencies now interfere in parental decisions for trivial matters under the guise of protecting children and “children’s rights”.

When originally proposed the Act specifically excluded “non custodial” parents, an error that undermined support as “non custodial” parents are the largest class of parents who have had their parental rights removed without cause. I suspect this oversight was due to the ‘deadbeat dad”myth which was widely debunked in federally funded studies by Sanford Braver (see Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s). With no fault divorce and out of wedlock birth’s rising combined with mother custody biases we see increasing situations where children are unilaterally removed from one of their parents, mostly fathers, care and control.

In Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow the U.S. Supreme court ruled a parent didn’t have standing to sue for his child due to his non custodial status. This is ironic in that states apply the “non custodial” label on parents at the behest of the federal government as it is used to determine which parent pays child support to the other parent. In New York State the Court of Appeals ruled that the higher earning parent of 2 parents who had a 50-50 shared parenting time would be “non custodial for the purposes of paying child support”. Thus, an equally responsible parent has no parental rights. While it shouldn’t, the Newdow decision shows that the “non custodial” label removes a persons parental rights, this without strict scrutiny for interfering.

80% of divorces are filed by women with the number one reason being ‘we grew apart”. There is an 80%+ mother custody rate which is fueling the problem of absent disenfranchised fathers. But regardless of which parent “wins” the other parent has their parental rights terminated without cause. Worse, to “win” the parental right a family has to subject themselves to the regulatory oversight of family courts and child support bureaucracies, usually initiated by the expected “winner”. Two parents walk into family court both with parental rights and the courts “award custody” to one parent which is actually government double speak for removing one parents parental rights.

This has allowed these family oversight and regulatory agencies to increasingly place their view of what is in the child’s best interest in place of the parents. Family Court used to be reserved for cases of child abuse or neglect but it now looks at itself as the determiner of the best interest of the child in place of parents. Increasingly we see married parents having to justify their parental decision to a family court judge at the behest of a school or child welfare agency.

While due process and the lack of application of strict scrutiny towards parental rights are now the norm things could get worse. The Convention of the Rights of the Child would place government oversight over all parental decisions. In states that have enacted provisions of this into their family law we have already seen it undermine parental rights with minor children, aided by child welfare agencies, bringing parents in family court to justify their parental decisions which the child does not agree with.

Advocating for the PRRA as enclosed will bring together all parents and organizations who worry about government overreach and interference in their lives. Enactment will force courts to accept parental rights and decision making for their children as supreme over any and all government agencies. It will correct the poor decision of the Supreme Court in Newdow ensuring that parents rights are not removed with a label and without cause. It will prevent assaults on the family like the Convention of the Rights of the Child, ensuring parental rights and responsibilities are not undermined by poor legislation or treaties.

As Sanford Braver reported, the number one reason a father doesn’t spend more time with his children is a limiting court order as “non custodial” parents are limited to 4 days a month to “visit” with their children. Number two is a custodial mother who interferes with a fathers access which 50% admitted to doing. We now have 40% of children living absent their biological father (60% in minority communities). Enactment of PRRA will begin to reduce the number of children living absent one parent as BOTH parents will have retained their parental rights and their right to be responsible to their child.

I have enclosed the blog https://nymensactionnetwork.org/prra/ in support of my position.

I remain available should you require anything further.

Sincerely,

Cc: Senator Senator Congressman

A timeline of broken families caused by federal programs

In 1970 there was growing concern regarding fatherless homes when it reached over 7% of African American families (see The Negro Family: The Case for National Action [Moynihan Report], Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1965. Annotated copy at https://www.theatlantic.com). Today, in 2019 it is a widely accepted fact that 48% of children live absent their biological father and in the African American community it may be as high as 60%. The U.S. Census shows living arrangements for children 1960 to present but what is glaringly absent from these statistics is the number of homes with shared parenting arrangements. This bias to break down children’s family structure into single parent (mother or father) or married parent families neglects shared parenting arrangements and is directly related to federal biases in the Social Security Act, Title IV part d section 458 “Incentive payments to states”.

The question is, are states encouraging our of wedlock birth’s which undermines their support for marriage and post divorce/separation working against shared parenting arrangements? Federal financial incentives to states require that families be divided into two classes; married or single parent. Currently states are reimbursed for for; 1. establishing paternity, 2. number of child support orders entered, 3. amount collected versus amount owed, 4. collection of arrears, and 5. the cost of the program (collections versus expenses). Given the federal financial incentives to the states it is apparent they benefit from the creation of single family households. Comparing single parent households and federal child support programs over time does seem to highly indicate a correlation, discussion which follows.

In 1950 the Federal Government began to require states to notify local law enforcement when providing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) which was later renamed Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and is common referred to as “welfare”. This was an effort to force parents to be responsible for their children and relieve the taxpayer from that burden. The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act was enacted to allow enforcement over state lines (pushed by the American Bar Association).

When the Moynihan Report came out in 1965 ( The President Johnson Administration) there was much backlash against the report with 2 major faults noted. First, it focused on fatherlessness in the black community, ignoring that per capita that there were more fatherless white children than fatherless black children. Second, it blamed African American fathers for abandoning the family when in many instances it was against their will. In effect it was seen as somewhat both racist and sexist. In 1970 there were 58,939,000 two parent families and 8,200,000 mother headed homes and 748,000 father headed homes. (see the US Census Bureau for statics used here)

In 1974 (In the Ford Administration from policies in the Nixon Administration of which Moynihan was a part of) the Social Security Act was amended and Title IV d required states to establish their own individual child support collection agencies which were designed to seek reimbursement from absent parents (usually the father) for payments made from welfare coffers. The money paid went into federal accounts and was not disbursed to the welfare recipient. This fact makes it a tax designed to go into federal coffers which is unrelated to financial child support. By 1975 two parent family homes decreased and mother headed homes increased to 11,245,000 and father headed homes increased to 1,014,000.

In 1981 (The President Reagan Administration) the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act authorized the IRS to withhold refunds to those persons who were delinquent, states to withhold a portion of unemployment benefits, and prevented child support from being discharged in bankruptcy for those cases with court ordered child support. In 1984 The Dept of Health and Human Services developed the Federal Child Support Guidelines Project which modified the Social Security Act in 5 areas; 1. Mandatory enforcement, 2. Improved interstate enforcement, 3. Equal services for welfare and non welfare families, and 4. Collecting spousal support (alimony) when child support was in place, 5. Formulate guidelines for determining child support. In 1985 two parent families declined to 46,149,000 and mother headed households increased to 13,081,000 and father headed households increased to 1,554,000.

Throughout the early 1980’s (The Reagan and H.W. Bush Administrations) many changes were proposed to Federal Law and incentives to the states to enact the Guideline project recommendations. When child support guidelines were enacted it mandated the states have them in place the legislation only gave a one year window prior to the states being financially penalized. While each state was entitled to have their own standards in place it was easier for the states to enact the Federal Model which was an incomes shares model, a percentage of income (i.e. 17% for one child, 25% for two) and was to be rebuttable, meaning the payer could present evidence on why they should be lower. Additionally, the percentage of income was based upon gross income thus 17% is 35% of income, 25% is 48% of income, etc.. The 1988 Family Support Act mandated guideline use by judges and required states to establish paternity among a host of other changes. In 1990 two parent families went up but at a much lower rate than mother headed families to 13,874,000 and father headed families to 1,993,000.

In 1992 The Child Support Recovery Act (The President H. W. Bush Administration) was enacted. This allowed states to prosecute parents who willfully chose not to pay child support. Notably absent was provision excepting those who did not have the ability to pay the amount set due to circumstances beyond their control, including poverty. This was the creation of a modern day debtors prison for as previously noted you can’t remove child support arrears even in bankruptcy. This includes attorney fees as they are considered “in the nature of child support”. 1995 saw single mother homes increase to 16,477,000 and single father homes increase to 2,461,000.

In 1996 (President Clinton’s Administration) the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliations Act (PRWORA) was enacted. This created a Federal Registry of Child Support Orders. Thus what is supposed to be a state issue (matrimony and child welfare) was now fully taken over by the Federal Government. It mandated a Directory of New Hires where government mandated employers provide information on all new hires for enforcement across state lines. This data base holds information on ALL new hires regardless if they owe child support or not, a wide net cast to catch a very few. The law also allowed fathers to voluntarily acknowledge paternity at the time of birth. 80% of out of wedlock fathers are in the hospital at the time of birth and these young men are pressured to “be responsible”. These ‘voluntary” acknowledgements provide NO parenting time with their child and worse, could not be overturned even if DNA later showed it to be false paternity.

In 1998 The Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act increased penalties for “willfully choosing” to not pay child support making it a Felony with fines of $10,000 and imprisonment for up to two years if the child is in another state (or the payer moves to another state). Again ability to pay is not taken into account and a payer can be held responsible under the law even if he went across state lines to secure employment to pay the child support due. In 1999 mother headed households continued to increase to 16,805,000 and father headed households to 3,094,000.

To recap, from 1970 to 1990 we saw married households decrease from 58,939,000 to 48,775,000 and single mother homes increase from 8,200,000 to 16,805,000. Single father homes increased from 748,000 to 3,094,000. Prior to 1970 fatherless homes held consistent at about 4-5% in the population. In 1970 the federal government stepped in and through unconstitutional federal laws and incentive payments to states set out to “help” and at each decade of increasing interference we see increased single parent households. Ronald Reagan said, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. If only he and the other Presidents had taken this advice.

After the backlash to the Moynihan Report the focus on African American fatherless households diminished and to show it was not biased programs switched to target fathers in general and to keep the backlash down for sexual bias the government differentiated between “responsible fathers” and “deadbeat dads”. But the “deadbeat dad” label was debunked in federally funded studies by Sanford Braver (Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myth’s) in the 1990’s. Studies still show that those in arrears on child support are due to poverty and inability to pay, two categories which proportionally negatively impact minority men and results in their incarceration in debtors prisons. Braver also found that the only reason a father doesn’t spend more time with his children is a limiting court order, number 2 a custodial mother who interferes with his access in a system with NO access enforcement. The number one complaint of fathers is that instead of being treated as a nurturing parent they have been turned into a wallet, forced to transfer income with no accountability of how it is spent and then reduced to, at best, being a visitor to their child.

The focus on fatherless homes started first blaming black fathers and then continued to blame all fathers. Chivalry and gender bias gives women a pass for irresponsible behavior. As the programs to collect dollars were increased so were the conferences and programs which looked to find out what was “wrong” with fathers these days and build “responsible fatherhood”. All these ignored the findings of Sanford Braver. Increased “father involvement” as a visitor and increased paternity establishment, of course, means greater reimbursements to the states which is the incentive definition of a responsible father under the child support system. This sexual bias against men flies in the face of the increasing number of father headed households indicating a willingness for fathers to be residential fathers. And the myriad of National and State Father Rights Organizations (in every state) shows a willingness for fathers to be there IN PERSON for their children.

To classify families as “married” “single father” or “single mother” fails to capture the many classifications of shared parenting arrangements between single mother and single father families. Any arrangement which has two involved parents, even if one is labelled “non custodial” means that you have two one parent families, both a “single mother” and “single father” albeit one with more and one with less residency. It also ignores the many faces of “step” families which may contain at any time her children, his children, and their children rotating in and out to other biological parents.

Garbage in, Garbage out as the saying goes. The Federal System breaks the family down into 3 classes. For divorced/separated and out-of-wedlock parents it labels the “single” parents “Custodial” and “Non Custodial” even though they are both alternately residential custodian and both share responsibility to financially provide for the children. The measure of a “responsible” parent is only on the one ordered to pay an income transfer to the other and if they meet these payments. There is no accountability that any money is spent to benefit the child and worse, there is no accountability for ensuring both parents can spend time with, and parenting their child. Shared Parenting isn’t counted as it doesn’t fit the focus on financial child support which is the only Federal measure for responsible parenting.

From 1970 to the present we have seen an ever increasing number of single parent families as opposed to 2 parent families. And while I assume many of these are co-parenting and share in the rights and responsibilities of raising their child, we have no idea as no such statistics exist in the Federal system. And as outlined in increments above, every time the Federal Government enacted programs to “help” maintain two parent families for the benefit of children we see no leveling off or reductions and in fact never ending increases.

2019, It is safe to say that the federal programs enacted over the past 50 years, costly to taxpayers and further bloating the federal bureaucracy, have not worked to benefit children and families. If we take the Census Bureau Living Arrangement of Children Chart showing percentage of decreasing two parent households we could use the same declining line to show the effectiveness of Federal Family Programs over the same time period. And given the incentive payments to states increase as single parent families increase it’s easy to see that the states have incentives to do so and the numbers indicate they are doing so. If the Federal Government is serious about helping children by securing two active and involved parents they need to completely overhaul its Title IV d Program and the incentives to states and stop creating what they purport to want to end.