|
|
|
Your FEEDBACK & Letters / State Legislative Activity / Upcoming Meetings
From: Webmaster (kids-right) (webmaster@kids-right.org)
This is a message from a mailing list, members@kids-right.org Unsubscribe instructions at bottom of message. ====================================================================== Good People, This message (a bit long!) contains information on: 1. Your FEEDBACK - to our Valentine's greeting. 2. State Legislative Activity - Colorado, Mass, New York, & Tennessee you may want to know. Very strong bill proposed in Tennessee. 3. More meetings planned - Syracuse, NY, Plymouth, Mass, & DC 4. Letter to Senator Clinton. 5. HELP WANTED - we can use an assistant webmaster. 1. Your FEEDBACK - to our Valentine's greeting. ----------------------------------------------- Thanks for your response to our Valentine's Day Message, these messages should help us all appreciate what we have (and have lost!). http://www.AKidsRight.Org/valentine.htm ----- Jesse Nunez (Jesse.Nunez@trw.com) > Love your messages, I am in the same boat, Non-custodial parent, and > have gone through the ringer, by the system that has alienated me > from my child, I also wished that I can be with you at the Federal > blgd, but I am in Los Angeles, CA. Let us never give up on these > important issue's and our commitment to our children, no matter the > obstacles in our way. GOD Bless America, and you, my dear friend. ----- Lisa (ldimarzo@hotmail.com) > Hi Happy belated valentines day! Anyway I have heard it all. Many > people told me oh just don't worry when your kids are older they > will find you, they will come back to you! well from my experience > its all bull***t as many may know ..and as far as the name calling, > my kids 8 and now 7 call me a liar, they say i dont love them, i > have left them, they tell me that dad says im bad .. I have heard it > time and time again, but ya know what helps me .. I know that even > though my x husband is rotten like that along with his new wife, I > know I never say anything bad about him , I never talk any bad > things in front of my children and I think that makes me a better > person... well just a note .. Lisa ----- Doug Heffley (dheffley@cis.net) > I am a really unique kind of guy! When I divorced for the second & > third times I was a custodial & non-custodial parent at the same > time! My oldest son from my first marriage was ALWAYS with me (my > next two wives divorced him as well as me!). My two daughters are > now both adults! My oldest probably hates my guts! We haven't > talked since Christmas of 1994 when my younger daughter and I tried > to set up a visit. My youngest is now on her own at 19! She would > like to live with me now, but years of abuse from the divorce > industry and our present economy have placed me in a position where > I can't keep a roof over my own head! So now that that opportunity > is knocking at my door I haven't the means to take advantage of the > situation! Nothing makes a father feel lower than to have a child > in need and not be able to be there for them! Is there any doubt as > to why I align myself with the views of ANARCHISTS? Until "Big > Brother" got involved in my life I was able to pay my bills on time > and with each marriage I had a beautiful home. Today I live with my > 86 year old aunt, because without her help I would be just another > homeless "Dad Beat Dead"! ---- John Graboski (johngraboski@juno.com) > I traveled all over the world (except for the former USSR), and did > my assignments in 4 different languages. I actually saw someone get > stabbed in a Columbian restaurant. > But nothing, absolutely nothing shocked me more than to watch a > child of 4 years, SCREAM at his father, "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I > HATE YOU", in a California restaurant some 10 years ago. > The sadness of the father was something I understood perfectly well. > My children's mother had taught them to hate me too. Eventually, > she alleged "child abuse" in court, and then I suddenly I was an > ex-father. > They were in their 20's when they found me, but trust me, it was > more like being interviewed by perfect strangers. Yes, they > apologized for their perjury in the judge's chambers ..... Dolores > had suborned her own children to perjury to get rid of me, and she > succeeded. > My ex-wife laments that she will never have grandchildren. I CANNOT > imagine why ? Do you think that they don't want the kind of misery > that their parents suffered ? John and Maria are now in their 30's. > Smart kiddies !!! 2. State Legislative Activity - you may want to know. ---------------------------------------------------- Here is a "brief" summary of what is going on in several states regarding reform (Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, & Tennesee). We can't post all items. They are welcome from any groups working toward equal parenting. If you know of something upcoming please send to: webmaster@kids-right.org Colorado -- from MikeSandifer@webtv.net ------- February 15, 2002 - Colorado House of Representatives Health, Environment, Welfare and Institutions Committee hearing on House Bill 1275 - Concerning Dependent and Neglected Children. In a blatant application of viewpoint discrimination, HEWI committee chairwoman, Laurie Clapp, adjourned the hearing HB1275 after hearing testimony from all attendees who were opposed to the bill (numbering approx. 5) and then pulled the bill without hearing testimony from those favoring the bill. Over 80 people had appeared to testify in favor of the bill, some traveling from as far away as Texas. The pretext for the viewpoint discrimination was an allegation that Suzanne Shell had disrupted the meeting. Shell attended the meeting for the purposes of video taping the proceedings for possible inclusion in her documentary film project. She possess a valid press pass issued by the Rocky Mountain Media Collective. State and local governments may not limit or deny the public or the media access to public forums. Ms. Shell had set up her camera against a wall, well out of the way of any traffic, and had video taped the first hour of the session unobtrusively and with complete decorum, and without comment from the committee. As soon as the first witness attempted to testify in favor of the bill, without justifiable reason or provocation, Chairwoman Clapp sent the Sergeant at Arms to demand that Shell move her camera to the back of the room. Because Ms. Shell's video camera is not equipped with remote microphones, if she was moved to the back of the room, she would only be able to photograph the backs of people's heads and would not able to record any audio. She was essentially being told to turn off her camera. Ms. Shell refused to move, citing first amendment freedom of the press rights.... The audience began to shout out "Leave her alone," and "Let her stay." A recess was called and Chairwoman Clapp confirmed that Shell was allowed to remain. When the hearing resumed, Ms. Shell was subjected to repeated harassment by the Vice Chair, Betty Boyd and other staff members. Shell continued to quietly video record in spite of the harassment and unprovoked disruptions until Chairman Clapp abruptly called a recess in the middle of the second witness's testimony in favor of the bill. Ms. Shell's press pass was confiscated by one of the representatives on the committee. The committee then held a secret meeting in an adjoining room, apparently without their attorney present, and without announcing it to public. A secret decision was subsequently made to postpone, and then changed to pulling, the bill. There is no record of the discussions leading up to those decisions or what the corresponding committee member votes were. Witnesses have reported that certain members of the committee approached them privately immediately after the hearing was adjourned and offered to hear their testimony secretly at a later date, possibly via telephone. Ms. Shell has received many calls from the public who were present with offers to testify on her behalf; that she had done nothing to disrupt the meeting. Ms. Shell has confirmed with the Director of the Rocky Mountain Media Collective that nobody had attempted to verify the validity of her press pass with him. Despite the fact that Chairman Clapp had publicly declared her press pass to be fraudulent, Ms. Shell's press pass was eventually returned to her when she demanded it. Ms. Shell was subsequently informed that she was banned from future hearings. It is unclear as to the nature or extent of that ban. Since 1931, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated repeatedly that government attempts to censor the media are presumed unconstitutional. This ban also constitutes a prior restraint on Ms. Shell's ability to publish subsequent General Assembly proceedings. The Court has said that "any prior restraint on expression comes to this Court with a 'heavy presumption' against its constitutional validity." Ms. Shell has been subjected to a systematic pattern of intimidation and harassment where ever she goes for two years. While sitting silently in courtroom galleries, judges will address her, interrogate her and issue orders to her. When attending public meetings and press conferences, they will assign security personnel to follow her around. Ms. Shell is the publisher and owner of Sage Wisdom Press (book publishing), the publisher of an internet website (http://www.profane-justice.org), a freelance journalist and editorial columnist, and a documentary film producer for Diogene's Quest Productions. She covers issues of public interest relating to child protection. Ms. Shell will be seeing appropriate legal remedies. Other persons attending the meeting have also stated their intentions to seek legal remedies. Contact Information: Suzanne Shell Director, American Family Advocacy Center Founder Committee for Pro-Family Public Policy 719-749-2971 fax 719-749-2972 dsshell@ix.netcom.com Massachusetts (March 9) -- from CaringDad@custodyreform.com ------------- State Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg to Speak About Shared Parenting State Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg will be speaking before the Fatherhood Coalition on Saturday, March 9, 2002 at 2:00 p.m., in the Amherst Public Library. The subject will be shared parenting as an alternative to sole custody in child custody determinations. The event will be open to the public. Come and speak to Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg regarding your Probate Court experiences. The Fatherhood Coalition is an organization dedicated to fostering the father/child relationship and promoting gender equality in family law. To contact Rinaldo Del Gallo, call 413-443-3150 or e-mail him at R_Del_Gallo@hotmail.com To learn more about the Fatherhood Coalition go http://www.fatherhoodcoalition.org New York -- Randall.Dickinson@fra.dot.gov -------- Albany - The Fathers' Rights Ass'n. [an equal parenting group] has scheduled Tue., 19 Mar., from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. as Legislative Education and Awareness Day (L.E.A.D.) A press conference is scheduled from 11:00 a.m., and a rally will take place on the Capitol steps at 12:00 noon. The location will be the Well of the Legislative Office Building in downtown Albany. This event is arguably the most important event of the year for fathers and their families. It is an opportunity to show strength in numbers and to speak directly with elected representatives and policy makers. Anyone and everyone is invited to join us, along with friends, other family members, including children, and business associates. Please plan to join us and make this notice available to your readers. Tennessee -- from GlennJSacks@cs.com --------- Tennessee Shared Parenting Bill Could Help Children, Reduce Divorce When Angeliek Green sang lullabies to her baby girls, she caressed their foreheads and told them "mommy will always be there for her little angels. Always." She was wrong. "I cry every night over my children," she says. "Every time I see kids in a park with their parents, or playing in a yard as I drive home from work, the wound is opened all over again." Fifteen years ago, under pressure because of finances and personal problems, Green ceded custody of her two daughters to her ex-husband. She says: "I thought that as a noncustodial parent [NCP] I would still have the right to be a part of their lives. It was the worst mistake of my life." The last decade and a half has been a nightmare for Green as she has been at the mercy of an ex-husband who has disappeared with the girls for years at a time, and a vindictive stepmother who has successfully turned the girls against their mother. Green's anguish is experienced by hundreds of thousands of NCPs across the country. Their grievances include: blocked visitation and unenforced visitation orders; "move away" spouses who use geography as a method of driving NCPs out of their children's lives; acceptance by the courts of false and/or uncorroborated accusations as a basis for denying custody or even contact between parent and child; rigid, excessive, and often punitive child support awards; a "win/lose" system which pits ex-spouses against one another by designating a custodial and a noncustodial parent; courts which in determining custody tilt heavily towards the parent who initiates the divorce, thus encouraging each parent to "strike first"; burdensome legal costs; and judicial preference for mothers over fathers as custodial parents. The solution to the problem now lies before the Tennessee State legislature. Tennessee HB2338 / SB2406, known as the "Shared Parenting Bill," abolishes the concept of child custody and gives equal standing to both parents in a divorce. In the event that divorcing parents are unable to agree on a shared parenting plan, the bill would instruct the courts to "order a custody arrangement with the primary residential designation alternating between parents" and would require that the residential designation "reflect a substantially equal schedule" between the mother and the father. The legislation, sponsored by sponsored by state Rep. Kathryn Bowers (D-Memphis) and state Sen. Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville), allows judges to deviate from this equal arrangement only if one of the parents has committed acts which render he or she unfit, such as child abuse or domestic violence. According to Dianna Thompson, Executive Director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children (ACFC), the bill "will ensure that children continue to have an ongoing emotional, physical, and financial relationship with both of their parents following a divorce or separation." She says: "Currently, we have a very adversarial court system, and destructive custody battles are largely driven by the parents' fear that they will be expelled from their children's lives. By replacing winners and losers with equals, the Shared Parenting legislation takes a lot of the anger and conflict out of divorce." Advocates of the bill emphasize that it will lower the divorce rate, since parents won't be rewarded by the courts for being the first one to terminate a struggling relationship. In addition, they say, it encourages cooperation and even reconciliation because each parent knows that, barring proof of abuse, they will not be able to drive the other parent out of their children's lives. In fact, studies have shown that states with egalitarian custody laws have lower divorce rates than "win/lose" states like Tennessee. And because the bill leaves few legal issues for parents to fight over, instead of spending thousands of dollars on court and legal fees, divorcing parents can spend the money on their children. 3. More meetings planned - Syracuse, NY and Plymouth, Mass. ----------------------------------------------------------- There are a couple of more upcoming meetings: March 2 in Syracuse, NY and April 6th in Plymouth, Mass Check the site for details: http://www.AKidsRight.Org/meeting.htm ALSO -- if you want to get involved in events for Mother's Day and Father's Day, visiting our Members of Congress in Washington, check the site: http://www.AKidsRight.Org/mom2002 4. Letter to Senator Clinton. ---------------------------- Sent by Tanya Harper (tharper001@aol.com). To learn more: http://www.AKidsRight.Org/actionb_syr Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton c/o Aprill Springfield, Legislative Aid 476 Russell Office Building Washington, DC 20510 RE: Family Rights Act Dear Senator Clinton: I greatly appreciate you taking time to read this letter. There is a major breakdown in the governmental agencies that handle child custody and support. Following is a brief history of our situation and what problems has faced the biological father, even though he has just as much right to raise his child as the custodial parent. I do feel that reform is needed to help protect the children of divorce who are victimized by custody disputes. I have a 9-year-old stepdaughter. When she was 7, we took the mother to court to try and obtain custody. The child has been moved 18 times since she has been born (that's every six months, and there are no reasons why the mother should be moving. only because she doesn't pay the landlord, or she moves out from the boyfriend's house, etc.). The child was in 8 schools within 2 years. We have lost count of the number of jobs the mother has had. The mother was living with a man to whom she was going to marry in December 1999. We had discovered a restraining order placed on this man by the mother dated November 1999 together with pictures of where he had beat her black and blue. Upon discovery of this information, in combination of the factual evidence of the unstable history of the mother, we took her to court. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of hiring an attorney. He never filed the modification of custody that we asked him to. We are still awaiting another perfect opportunity such as this one to go after custody again. Funny thing, the mother still sees this man off and on, but since there has been no altercations lately, we can't do a thing. The father has lived in just two places since the child's birth, he has held his current job for the past 8 years, and we just moved into a wonderful, family neighborhood with Class A schools within a mile of our house. I also am very stable, holding my current job for the past 7 years, attending college to finish my Bachelor's degree and running a real estate investment business of my own. The child was born in August 1992. The mother took the father to court for custody orders and child support in 1994. Basically, the mother had been receiving state assistance claiming she did not know who the father was. No father had been listed on the birth certificate. After two years of paying her support, buying necessities such as food, diapers, etc., he even has a family photograph of the three of them in December 1992; he refused to pay her any more money until he was listed as the father. By this time, the State had started probing her to find out who would pay them back. This is why they went to court. However, not realizing how the system was at the time, the father ended up paying back the State as well as back child support, EVEN THOUGH he had receipts, cancelled checks, etc. for the two years. The State did NOT WANT TO HEAR FROM THIS FATHER. And he paid for it just so his life would not be ruined. Currently the child has attended the same school over the last year. However, because of the situation with the after school community center that happened in 1999, the child goes home at 3:00 PM after school. The community center was going to testify on our behalf during our custody hearing. Our attorney never called the first witness, even though we had about 15 witnesses that had known the mother for some time and were excellent character witnesses of just how unstable the mother was. The child now stays at home from 3:00 PM to at least 6:00 PM, and sometimes even as late as 8:30 PM by herself, Monday through Friday. If they are ever on a break from school, she stays with us because the father works out of the house. There are no child care costs occurred for day care, and if she is put into programs such as soccer, or summer camp, we generally pay for that as well. Since we live in Florida, the Florida Department of Children and Family has been contacted on numerous occasions by me to see if there is anything at all that can be done to save the life of this child. As it is now, the child has real difficulty getting along with other children (she's never in one place long enough to make friends), her school grades are not as good as a properly raised 4th grader's should be, she so desperately craves attention that she does not get from her mother at home (and this is going to cause serious problems when the wrong crowd gives her the attention she needs), and she does not get the proper medical care. She has been to the dentist twice since I've been in her life, and has not seen a medical doctor during this time (that has been 3.5 years). I took her to that first dentist visit. As far as her staying home by herself, the Department says they can do nothing unless she is 8 or under. I'm sorry, but 9 years old is WAY TOO YOUNG to be staying home alone. Our latest issue that we have dealt with is child support. The mother and father signed an agreement that was recorded in the court system in March 2001 stating that the father would pay the mother directly. This document basically removed the State from further overseeing of this case. The father and I are getting married March 23rd, and are traveling internationally for our honeymoon. When we applied for our passports, my fiance received a letter from the Passport Agency that he had been denied, as he owed over $5,000.00 in back child support. Thankfully, this situation has been resolved and he should receive his passport any day now. As mentioned above, this father paid for monies that he did not owe to save his credit because no one wanted to hear HIS SIDE. It's about time the system starts hearing BOTH SIDES of the story before they determine who will be the custodial parent. Clearly, my fianc=E9 is a father who loves his child and would die for her if need be. Yet, since 1994, he has dealt with governmental agencies who has affected his credit, has kept him from getting a home, has kept him from getting refinancing, and almost kept him from going on his honeymoon because the State did not forward the necessary information to the Federal level. He has bent over backwards, not to mention paid thousands he did not owe, just so he could live his life and see his daughter every other weekend. But, every time he turns around, there is another problem with the system. Yet, the custodial parent is anything but stable, and the government won't do a thing to help us. And he continues to pay her because that is the obligation. While physical abuse is terrible, we are being forced to watch his child suffer with emotional abuse and neglect, and we're not able to step in and save her. The emotional scars that this child has are so deep, and I'm afraid it is too late to turn the direction of her life. While the father chooses to raise his daughter and make our house a happy place that she can feel comfortable at, I can see the outsider view of the damage this child is suffering. I could not imagine what I would actually do if this child were my flesh and blood. That is why it is easier for him to not think about how his daughter lives 80% of the time. He knows there is nothing he can do but be there for her, because if he fretted about his daughter the 80% of the time she isn't with us, he could not live. It is so frustrating to see that the courts do not, for the most part, take the well being of the child before anything else. It's about time we started putting the CHILDREN FIRST. They cannot take care of themselves, and sometimes, the "non-custodial" parent cannot even take care of their own children because the system is impossible to conquer if there is not absolute proof of physical abuse (where it is visible) or the custodial parent gets put in jail, etc. In our situation, emotional scars run deeper than any physical scars could. I beg you, any support that can be given by your team for family rights reform. 5. HELP WANTED - we can use an assistant webmaster. -------------------------------------------------- Our web site and activity continues to grow. We have had some offers of help, but so far no one has been able to follow through. If you are familiar with HTML, Microsoft FrontPage, and especially if you know CGI scripting -- and would like to help, please contact John Murtari (jmurtari@AKidsRight.Org). Please include any background you have in web design and also the URL's of any sites you have worked on. If you can contribute 2-4 hours of week of your time, that would be great! ================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list at anytime, send email to Majordomo@kids-right.org with the following 1 line in the BODY of the message (Subject is ignored). unsubscribe members
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 02 2003 - 03:12:01 EST |
