9 April 2001
Senator Charles Schumer
Hanley Federal Building, Room 841
100 S. Clinton Street
Syracuse, NY 13261
Dear Senator Schumer
I
am a coordinator for a group of parents who are seeking Civil Rights legislation to
recognize the basic right of both parents and children to be together. We are not a
“Mother’s” group or a “Father’s” group. We are parents concerned about what has happened
to our children. We have tried to understand
that the Judges, Lawyers, and other professionals in the present “system” are
doing the best they can -- but often with tragic results.
We believe it is time one of our most basic Civil Rights be recognized and given the protection it deserves: the right of a parents/children to associate with each other. The attached draft of the Family Rights Act of 2000 is an attempt to capture those ideals. We would like your help in getting this introduced as a Bill as soon as possible and hope you will join us in calling for Congressional Hearings into Family Law reform. We are not experienced “legislators” and look forward to working with your local staff in discussing the wording of the Act and making it better.
Certainly
this Act will mean tremendous changes across the country and the presentation of such
change will require leadership and understanding. We all look forward to hearing from you.
I can be contacted via: phone: 635-1968, x-211,
fax: 315-635-3243, email: jmurtari@AKidsRight.org
I wrote to you
last year on this issue, and informally spoke with some of your local staff that had
received my letter. But I did not hear any further from your office. On
Monday, April 16th, members of group are gathering in Syracuse for a meeting and we do
plan on just visiting your offices to drop off some petitions for reform and to attempt to
schedule a follow-up meeting with your staff. Details at : : http://www.AKidsRight.org/plan_syr.htm
Our group
spokesperson, Mary Chancellor (Tenessee), can be reached at :
phone : 423-326-0585,
email: contact@kids-right.org
Best regards,