Your Board of Directors has the great pleasure of announcing that Family Law Reform (FamilyLawReformUSA.com), will be merging with the National Parent Organization (NationalParentsOrganization.org).
The joining of these two extraordinary organizations very similar in culture, and with practice strengths that are highly complementary, will enable us to provide a much stronger voice for reforming current divorce law in Florida, and eventually Nationwide. The National Parents Organization, being the larger of the two organizations both in finances and membership, will retain its namesake, with Family Law Reform becoming the Florida Chapter of the National Parents Organization. Alan Frisher, our President, will serve as Executive Director of this Florida Chapter with Chuck Reintertsen, our Treasurer, sitting on the Board of Directors of the National Parents Organization.
You can expect from the new organization the same focus, the same dedication, and the same team that you have come to know and trust. The difference is that there will now be many more of us, with an eye toward future issues such as child sharing, child support, parental alienation, military divorce, etc. First and foremost, however, we plan on obtaining Legislative Sponsors to introduce our proposed alimony reform bill to the Florida House and Senate this upcoming Legislative session.
People will often dismiss or deny the affects of an absentee father. The rationalization is that children are adaptable and they make the adjustments. While, yes they do adapt, that doesn’t mean that they are not masking immense pain.
“Why don’t I have a daddy like [insert name]?” is a question that starts to get asked around ages four and five as kids start to see all the other kids in their schools, teams, neighborhood with two parents. This is just the awareness that something is different and then the tough questions start to follow – tough questions that many times go unanswered and a mask is created.
When a man leaves a woman after they conceive a child together, the effects take place instantaneously. Lack of father involvement impacts early births, low birth weight, and infant mortality. The mortality rate for infants in the first 28 days is four times more likely to occur when a father is absent.
There are a lot of problems in American society and culture including drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, violence, gangs, poverty, obesity, and other mental and emotional problems. While this seems like a wide-range of issues, they call come from the same source – the absence of a father.
If fatherlessness was a disease, it would be an epidemic in America. More than 24 million children are being raised without the presence of their biological father, while millions more have the physical presence but emotionally absent. This equates to one out of every four children (with some studies suggesting one out of every three) are fatherless.
FEDS ABANDON ‘EQUAL RIGHTS‘ CLAIM TO RAISE YOUR KIDS
‘Much work to be done before decades of federal overreach is reversed’
Federal officials have reversed their claim that they have “equal rights” to children to raise them, a claim that stirred outrage in many quarters of America when it was first made a few months back.
The claim originally was included in a draft policy by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education and generously allowed that parents, too, should be allowed to help raise their own children along with the government, through various programs.
The document, the “Draft Policy Statement on Family Engagement From the Early Years to the Early Grades,” stated at the time: “It is the position of the departments that all early childhood programs and schools recognize families as equal partners in improving children’s development, learning and wellness across all settings, and over the course of their children’s developmental and educational experiences.”
The newest release of the statement, however, now provides that, “Families are children’s first and most important teachers, advocates, and nurturers. Strong family engagement in early childhood systems and programs is central – not supplemental – to promoting children’s healthy intellectual, physical, and social-emotional development; preparing children for school; and supporting academic achievement in elementary school and beyond. Research indicates that families’ involvement in children’s learning and development impacts lifelong health, developmental, and academic outcomes.”
The HSLDA had blasted the earlier statement, in fact, dispatching Estrada to meet with senior officials from the U.S. Department of Education and “personally” explaining the significant issues with the draft statement, including opposition from parents to the “bureaucratic arrogance.”
The change is a very mich improved version, the HSLDA pointed out, making clear that “families have strong and sustained effects on children’s learning, development, and wellness.”
“Despite this victory,” the group explained. “there are other problems with the document that remain. The document’s working definition of ‘family’ still includes not only a child’s parents or legal guardians, but ‘all adults who interact with early childhood systems in support of their child, to include biological, adoptive, and foster parents; grandparents; legal and infromal guardians; and adult siblings.’”
HSLDA exlained, “In situations where conflict may exist between a child’s parents and other family members regarding educational choices, this still quite broad definition of family is not hepful for clarity regarding parental rights in education.”
The organization explained, “There is much work to be done before decades of federal overreach in K-12 education is reversed.”
The document does still include a suggestion that families and institutions “partner” to give children better results in school.
WND reported the original plan by the government was to “systematically” engage families about their own children.
“At HSLDA, we believe that these statements reveal these agencies’ true beliefs: that a child’s God-given family does not matter. Family is whomever or whatever the government says it is,” Estrada wrote at the time.
He cited other government agendas, such as pushing the political correctness in Common Core, “dangerous U.N. treaties,” as well as suggestions for universal preschool.
Federal officials have reversed their claim that they have “equal rights” to children to raise them, a claim that stirred outrage in many quarters of America when it was first made a few months back. The claim originally was included in a draft policy by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the […]
If you think Juan Mendez is a complete fool, moron and just unfit to hold public office your not the only one!
In fact, according to the American’s for Parental Equality and men’s rights advocates, you could be right!
Many men’s and father’s rights activist have long held the opinion that Juan Mendez has single-handedly worked against legislation to change bias family court laws. This opinion appears to be true in recent public statements Juan Mendez has made.
Juan Mendez was recently asked,
“What do you plan to do to bring equality to fathers being denied rights to their children in family court when there is no domestic violence or criminal history?”
Juan Mendez looked a little shocked by the question and even asked for it to be repeated so he could compose himself. Then, the idiot (in our opinion) spilled his feminist guts.
At least from his statements…
Mendez openly plans to keep denying father’s rights to their biological children.
A Facebook video of this moron has now reached 34 thousand views of how Mendez side-stepped the entire question while throwing a bone to his liberal-feminist allies.
The only clear choice for the voters of LD26 is to vote for Cara Nicole to unseat Juan Mendez. Cara has spent some time fighting for equal rights for fathers. She knows of the struggles fathers face in divorce and child support cases and firmly backs equal rights.
We need to support Cara Nicole in this year’s November election and remove Juan Mendez from political office once and for all!
Here we are starting another year in the same position as last year and the year before that and the year before that. Three years now since I saw my two children and three more to go if the situation remains the same. My son Scott will be sixteen in three years time and he will instantly have the freedom to choose to find me. Which is why I keep my blog running. I have said this over and over again during the last three years, all we want is equality. Not too much to ask in 2014. A fathers right to see his children and a child’s right to see his or her father. Men are often accused of being controlling, but when a mother denies a father access to his children and a child access to his or father then that is the extreme of controlling behavior. But that seems to go unrecognised. Balanced? I don’t think so. Fair? I don’t think so. Equal? I don’t think so. Children are not tools to be used as a punishment against a father.
Here we are starting another year in the same position as last year and the year before that and the year before that. Three years now since I saw my two children and three more to go if the situation remains the same. My son Scott will be sixteen in three years time and he will instantly have the freedom to choose to find me. Which is why I keep my blog running. I have said this over and over again during the last three years, all we want is equality. Not too much to ask in 2014. A fathers right to see his children and a child’s right to see his or her father. Men are often accused of being controlling, but when a mother denies a father access to his children and a child access to his or father then that is the extreme of controlling behavior. But that seems to go unrecognised. Balanced? I don’t think so. Fair? I don’t think so. Equal? I don’t think so. Children are not tools to be used as a punishment against a father.
Here we are starting another year in the same position as last year and the year before that and the year before that. Three years now since I saw my two children and three more to go if the situation remains the same. My son Scott will be sixteen in three years time and he will instantly have the freedom to choose to find me. Which is why I keep my blog running. I have said this over and over again during the last three years, all we want is equality. Not too much to ask in 2014. A fathers right to see his children and a child’s right to see his or her father. Men are often accused of being controlling, but when a mother denies a father access to his children and a child access to his or father then that is the extreme of controlling behavior. But that seems to go unrecognised. Balanced? I don’t think so. Fair? I don’t think so. Equal? I don’t think so. Children are not tools to be used as a punishment against a father.
Exactly five years after an oppressed father protested discrimination by burning himself alive on the steps of Keene County Family Court, four victimized fathers calmly walked up the steps of the United States Supreme Court to file a writ for parental equality.
Media throughout the beltway were discussing it, news releases were confirmed everywhere, and these four made history outside the halls of our nation’s highest court. And it’s high time. Give dads their due. We sacrifice in the line of duty every day for our children.
Whether it be law enforcement in Orlando, firemen headed into the towers on 9-11, or our military in foreign wars, we are sick and tired of the abuses inflicted upon us in divorce and family courts. We are tired of returning to anything but “equal justice” as promised on the top of the Supreme Court edifice.
These four professionals, a doctor, lawyer, dentist and engineer made their case at a news conference on the eve of Fathers Day. They are Dr. Mario Jimenez, M.D., Dr. Leon Koziol, J.D., Dr. Dan Pestana, DDS and John Bautista, BSME, MBA, sacrificing their professional standings by taking up this cause. They need your help.
Yes it’s Fathers Day again with those worn out stereotypes about manning up. And that’s exactly what these professionals did from New York, California, Florida and Virginia. They asked our government to man up to its responsibilities for equal rights. Being born male does not give our courts a power to denigrate our authority as equal parents under supreme laws.
While other traditionally discriminated groups have made great strides in achieving reform, fathers continue to be remanded by our courts to lower class parent status with all the oppression which comes with it. Fathers remain 85% of all parents paying support, nearly 100% of those sent to a debtor prison for delinquencies and even shot dead in the back by a traffic cop while fleeing unarmed from a support warrant (Walter Scott).
In the iconic movie, “Mrs. Doubtfire,” a judge confronts Daniel at a hearing following the exposure of Daniel’s identity as the daddy inside the nanny and lowers the gavel. The judge dismisses Daniel’s baleful explanation of the charade—a sincere, even desperate love for his three children—as mere additional evidence of superb acting ability. He assigns permanent custody to Miranda, orders supervised visitation, and refers Daniel for psychological counseling.
With less than perfect judgment, beset with unusual habits, perhaps even a bit eccentric, but with no dangerous or truly aberrant characteristics, Daniel is like many devoted fathers of the some 70 million American dads who are knocked senseless by the legal system when spousal strife prevents amicable resolution of custody and visitation disputes during divorce and separation proceedings. On custody, she usually wins, he usually loses, especially if the children are young. He becomes a mere visitor in his children’s lives (hence the term “visitation” rights) obligated to pay child support and often doomed to fight monumental battles with spouse and court to maintain even the slightest contact with his children. A common story in states across the nation, rarely with a happy ending.
Is a disguise, a masquerade, a Mrs. Doubtfire, the only route out of the quagmire for devoted, competent fathers? Or might there be some recourse or solace to be found in the law, some concept or theory he might grab onto? The answer is a tentative, guarded, but perhaps inevitable “yes,” a right ripening on the vine called human dignity or “dignity rights,” a right that just may elevate them to the sanctum of a protected class.
In New York fathers ostensibly begin on a level playing field of equal protection and due process. Under the Domestic Relations Law there is no prima facie right to custody in either parent; fathers are not automatically excluded (DRL Sec. 70[a]; Sec. 240 (1)[a]). Case law, moreover, shelters visitation with repeated emphases on the crucial role a noncustodial father can play in the development of the children (Ronald S. v. Lucille Diamond S., 45 A.D.3d 295 (2007)), and the obligation of a custodial mother to assure meaningful contact between children and him (Bibi Khan-Soleil v. Armani Rashad, 111 A.D.3d 728 (2013)).
But then there is the “best interest” test which both custody and visitation courts impose as an objective evaluation of parental qualification (DRL Secs. 70, 240; Friederwitzer v. Friederwitzer, 55 N.Y.2d 89 (1982); Eshbach v. Eschbach, 56 N.Y.2d 167 (1982))—a test fathers flunk in some significant degree or another more frequently than mothers.
Turner v. Rogers, 564 U.S. 431 is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 20, 2011, that held that a state must provide safeguards to reduce the risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty
GUEST POST: Turner v. Rogers and What It Means To Me | Criminal Law & Psychology Blog
[Chris Castanias is a father of two who was held in civil contempt for failure to pay child support. Although he requested appointed counsel due to his indigent status, the domestic relations court refused to entertain his request and he was subsequently sentenced to over 90 days in jail. In this piece, he shares his experience. — Zachary Cloud]
Divorce can be financially devastating, and equally so for both mother and father.
Imagine for a moment that you experience a 50% reduction in pay and at the same time are ordered by a court to pay not only your rent or mortgage, but that of your neighbor. Could you do it?
The economics of that scenario are similar to that of an obligor (the person ordered to pay child-support), previously living in a typical two-earner, two-child household. What happens at divorce is that the earners split up and no longer jointly contribute to the family’s financial obligations, while the designated obligor picks up an additional involuntary debt (child-support obligation) that is likely close to that of his or her existing rent or mortgage payment.
In the fictional situation described above, would you consider it fair if you were at risk of being jailed for not making both your and your neighbors housing payment in any given month. If you faced the potential of jail, would you want legal representation? If you couldn’t afford to make the housing payments, how likely would you be to afford an attorney. Is it possible that financial scenario might create a situation where you would need to ask for court appointed counsel?
There are similar parallels to my hypothetical scenario, the case of Turner v Rogers and many countless others who have been sentenced to jail without being allowed representation of legal counsel, after allegedly falling behind with child-support obligations.
The world is currently experiencing the worst economic period in modern history. In this country, foreclosures are at record high levels, yet no one is imprisoned for failing to pay their mortgage or defaulting on their rent. In 2008, statistics show that nearly 16 million child-support obligors nationwide were in default on the child-support obligation. One state, Illinois reported 88% of their obligors to be past due. For more information, see here.
I’m writing as an strong advocate of Michael Turner, because I personally experienced the exact same fate, and since the completion of what I feel was an unjust imprisonment over a year ago, I’ve no longer had any access to my children.
Coined in 1985 by psychiatrist Richard Gardner, PAS describes a set of behaviors exhibited by kids whose parents deliberately turn them against the other parent, through a variety of techniques that are at once coercive, manipulative, vindictive and sociopathic.
“It’s a violent act to a child’s mind,”
Jason Patric tells Newsweek, speaking of PAS, which he says he began investigating following his initial trial to assert his parental rights with Gus. He believes parental alienation is akin to what domestic violence was 40 years ago—a dirty secret that is harming millions but not acknowledged by many mental health professionals.
As many of you know, we just had a magnificent conference on men’s issues in London, England. It was a brilliant event that went off without a hitch. Thanks to the work of Mike Buchanan it was a full house, wall to wall with amazing people.
The only downer of the entire event was that I had to make the announcement during my speech that the A Voice for Men Facebook page was deleted by the management there. Also, at this point I can say that my appeal to have the page reinstated has gone ignored. 35,000 followers dismissed by Facebook for not towing the feminist, politically correct line.
This is part of a now quite familiar trend of social media platforms, which are essentially the modern equivalent of what we used to call telecommunications companies, controlling the expression and even the ideas of their customers.
Every time one of these events happens on Twitter, (and again) Facebook or other popular outlet, we see people in the comments lamenting the dogmatic discrimination and suggesting that “someone” needs to create an alternative platform.
Using Redditopen source software, we have created a platform where current events and self-published ideas can be discussed without the interference of political correctness.
As you will see in the terms of service, there is a very narrow range of postings not permitted. They are as follows:
The timing for the unpublishing could not be any worse for the group, as they are now unable to publish post-conference articles and summaries of the event. It may have just be a coincidence, but a coordinated mass reporting operation could also have been the cause – so far, no group has come forward to take responsibility for the removal of the page.
After having amassed around 35,000 likes on the social media platform, the page was deleted for having “violated community standards” – it was not revealed what exact regulation was violated, and Elam was adamant that they had done nothing wrong.
Speaking to a crowd at the International Conference on Men’s Issues in the ExCel Centre in London, Paul Elam revealed that the Facebook page for “A Voice For Men,” one of the organizing groups for the event, has been unpublished by the social network on the second day of the conference.
We’re just inviting you to take a timeout into the rhythmic ambiance of our breakfast, brunch and/or coffee selections. We are happy whenever you stop by.
As many of you know, we just had a magnificent conference on men’s issues in 
Thanks to the work of Mike Buchanan it was a full house, wall to wall with amazing people.
The timing for the unpublishing could not be any worse for the group, as they are now unable to publish post-conference articles and summaries of the event. It may have just be a coincidence, but a coordinated mass reporting operation could also have been the cause – so far, no group has come forward to take responsibility for the removal of the page.
Americans for Equal Rights for Fathers 