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There’s hope for Michigan

A bill has been entered in the Michigan House of Representatives to make Equal Parenting the default parenting arrangement. Judges can overrule the default only on the basis of “clear and convincing” evidence that Equal Parenting wouldn’t be in the best interest of a child.

http://michiganradio.org/post/bill-would-make-shared-custody-mandatory-priority-family-court-judges

This is a powerful bill. The requirement of clear and convincing evidence is necessary to stop the painful, and wasteful arguing over who is better or worse deserving of being a parent. If you are a parent before separation, you are a parent after. There is no valid reason for depriving children and parents of their full relationship because of separation of the parents.

The bill was introduced by Representative Runestad, who happens to be the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. This means the bill’s sponsor in a very powerful position to see it gets the full service it deserves. We can expect harsh words and tactics to be applied against this bill and Representative Runestad. On the other hand, Ex-fathers wants to encourage those who work to overcome the terror of the family court. You can help, a simple message to Rep. Runestad will let him know there is support behind him in this:
Email: JimRunestad@house.mi.gov
It doesn’t matter where you live, whatever state or country, we can show Michigan we are all united for Equal Parenting.

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Let’s talk money


Sometimes things are worth repeating. In fact, worth repeating louder, more slowly, and often. Here’s a reprise of an earlier post.
—
Everyman
– – –

It’s time to talk about the money

Let’s understand that even a small fraction of the money that men spend fighting in court would do immensely more if it were spent advocating in pubic. The question is how do you get the most bang for the buck (time and money)? Clearly, fathers should stop wasting their efforts on lawyers (and the family courts) and on politicians. Those people have to be seen as the opposition. Father advocates need to spend their time with their comrades, the men and women (relatives and friends like Grandparents, sisters, second wives, etc) that have been hurt or could be hurt by the intolerable situation of fathers and children in family court today. Unfortunately most of those people do not understand the problem they are caught up in. Consequently they play into the hands of the opposition.

The only way men will get their kids back is when they get their money back. As long as there is money to be made from fathers the problem will continue. We need to fight so-called ‘child support’ — the ex-father shakedown — so we can give our children the kind of child support they really need — their fathers. Ex-fathers need to stop being ashamed to talk about the money and start to point out that it was the mothers who wanted the kids but would not accept the responsibility that goes with them — the financial responsibility that goes with raising a family.

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Supreme Court of Canada report misses the whole point

According to the story as released by the Globe & Mail (Toronto), the Supreme Court of Canada has commissioned a report on family law “out of concern that justice is fast becoming inaccessible to a vast proportion of the country”. Unfortunately, the report totally ignores the fundamental human rights of parents and children. Although the report says, “estranged spouses and their children are seriously damaged by the adversarial system”, its only solution is to further abuse parents by putting them through quasi-judicial proceedings with no guarantee that they will continue to be meaningful parents to their children. Speeding up injustice is not justice.

Apparently the report suggests that judges lawyer and law schools must embrace a culture of mediation and settlement. Mediation and settlement will do nothing to stop the current bias against fathers in Family Court. Mediation in fact will be the tool that will be used to further subjugate fathers to their children’s mother just as is happening now.

Interestingly the report notes that “cuts the family legal aid have a disproportionate effect on women and children, …”. This is a red herring. First of all, women receive the bulk of legal aid. Legal aid is seldom available to fathers. Consequently, when legal aid is cut women continue to receive a far larger cut than men do. More importantly, the more obvious “disproportionate effects” are the disproportionate loss of parenting by fathers, and the astronomically disproportionate amount of child support paid by fathers. All of which happens to fathers who are more than willing and able to look after the children themselves. And indeed, poor fathers even end up paying mothers who are more than capable of supporting of the child, even to the extent of sending the child to day care when the father is available to look after the child.

The simple facts of the matter are, that Mr. Justice Thomas Cromwell, the head of the Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, has failed to recognize the fundamental human rights of parents to raise their children. There is no reason why good parents should have to fight to have an equal parenting role after their separation. If the Supreme Court were simply to put its much touted role of supporting substantive equality there would be no need for the fuss about the problems with mediation and payments and most importantly lawyers, family courts, and, of course, judges.

Apparently the report admits that estranged spouses and their children are seriously damaged by the adversarial system. Yet there is nothing in the Globe and Mail article to suggest that the court is accepting any responsibility for the decades of damage for which it is responsible. When we stop to consider the extent of the damage done to the individual parents, to their children, and to society by this maniacal family-law regime that has been ripping families apart without the slightest indication that it has any understanding of justice or human rights, with no feelings for the victims, with nothing but the financial gain of the divorce industry in its sights, and that there is to be no justice for any of those victims that have gone before, we must be outraged, we must take action, we must demand restitution.

It’s not that justice is fast becoming inaccessible, it’s that justice is impossible for the vast majority of fathers in Canadian family law, just as it is in most of the Western world. Until the family-law courts accept that the only principle upon which a parent can be denied their parenting rights and the child can be denied its equal parenting rights is the abuse or neglect of the child, and the courts cease to preach the unachievable, undefinable, unjust and irrational mantra of the “best interest of the child”, there can be no justice in a family-law court. And this applies equally to fathers and mothers and all other child caregivers.

Gentlemen, in spite of the seemingly favorable rhetoric, this is not a step in the right direction, this is another divorce-industry challenge to fathers. Prepare yourselves.

Supreme Court Chief Justice calls for family law overhaul

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Canada’s top cops play fast and loose with the law

Lucien Khodeir in the referenced article tells us that the Canadian Divorce Act requires that the Canadian child-support regulations be based on the principle that parents have a joint financial obligation to provide for their children in accordance with their relative abilities. Mr. Khodeir makes the point that Canadian Child-Support regulations do not respect this law defined in the Divorce Act. For example, the regulations do not consider the special financial burden of parents who do not have primary residence for the child but who must nevertheless keep a home suitable for the child’s visitation.

The real problem here is not the Guidelines, but the Divorce Act itself, and more importantly, the whole concept of child care after parental separation as practiced in the Courts. The normal community standard for intervention in the parental role is prevention of abuse and neglect. Parents who look after their children in their care such as by providing a home, food, clothing, education and the necessary emotional care have nothing to worry about in the way of government interference. This is the situation for intact families and all other family types and is independent of parental income or wealth; except separated parents. Family law as practiced throughout the Western World has put the focus on collections rather than parenting. Consequently, family law has violated the equality between separated parents and other parents; the equality of fathers and mothers; and the equality of children in separated families and those in intact families.

One can only wonder how in a country like Canada where the highest courts have adopted a standard of equality based on equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity, that family law would be allowed to produce such unequal outcomes as we see in custody determinations and financial collection orders. The obvious reason must be that the courts are not in fact interested in equality or even justice but in some malignant ideology, that has produced the misandry that is driving fatherhood to the brink of destruction, and has driven many individual fathers to destruction.

http://www.troymedia.com/2012/11/07/canadas-top-cops-play-fast-and-loose-with-the-law/

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When Kids Believe a Lie

In her article on the Smart Stepmom When Kids Believe a Lie, Laura Petherbridge says,
“However, many stepmoms believe once dad gets remarried and takes on a second family, that the other children should have compassion and understanding about his financial strain and receive less.”

“This is incorrect. He brought those children into the world, and he is still fully responsible to provide for them. And he signed a divorce agreement making a vow that he would deliver. It is his duty and obligation.”

In a short article like this, Laura Petherbridge cannot be expected to go into the kind of detail needed to do justice to the subjects of child and spousal support payments. However I think a little more “truth” is in order. So, truth be told, we have to understand right up front than everyone needs a little more “compassion” when a new family comes along. This is true in intact families — if new children come along there is less to go around for the other children and for the parents; there is no reason it should be different in separated families, be they blended families or any other type. This is also true if a new family member such as a elderly parent or an unemployed family member comes into the family. Furthermore, it is totally contrary to fundamental equality that children should be subject to different standards just because they were first or were not first or because of a divorce or of separation agreement or because of laws for so-called child-support. We need also to remember that all current alimony/spousal-support and child-support agreements are made under duress. Any father facing family court in America or the rest of the Western World knows he is dead meat before he even starts, and that the children he considered to be his children are no longer his, but are nothing more than tokens for misandric peonage that clearly work contrary to any concept of the child’s best interests or any kind of realization of parental rights, justice or equality. The level of fatherlessness in America is clear proof that family law and the family courts in particular are working against children at every turn. The long path to fundamental justice that we thought had been established or soon would be established in the beginnings of the civil rights and gender equality movements have detoured around family law which has now submerged itself into a morass of deceit and avarice that deserves universal contempt. And that contempt should continue until fathers receive the restitution of family, finances and dignity they deserve for the systematic and systemic injustices they have been forced to endure.