Several California Bills Attempt to Reform Family Courts

By Malcolm Maclachlan | 02/12/09 12:00 AM PST
Capitol Weekly
The Newspaper of California Government and Politics

Democratic lawmakers are crafting a package of bills to reform family courts in California. One Assemblymember is seeking an audit of the family court system, while another has submitted a bill that would limit the types of testimony that can be used in custody proceedings.

Several other Democratic legislators are currently evaluating whether to introduce bills addressing other facets of the family courts. The legislation is being pushed by a variety of children and family groups, notably the Marin-based Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE), which has also submitted 20 unbacked bills to Judicial Counsel.

Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, said she’s asking the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) to conduct an audit of family courts in Marin and Sacramento Counties. This follows a similar request submitted last June by now-termed out Assemblywoman Sally Lieber. On Thursday morning, the office of Senator Mark Leno, D-San Franciso, confirmed they were signing on as a Senate co-author on the request.

Lieber’s request sought audits of eight counties. It also sought answers a wide variety of questions, from mediation procedures to appointment of counsel to minors and other issues. Ma said she trimmed back her request from that submitted by Lieber to focus on two counties that many family law advocates say have the most troubling track records on inconsistent behavior.

But after meeting with a dozen family court litigants recently, she said she felt it was important that she do something. Ma said she hopes the audit, and a hearing she plans to hold before the end of March as the chair of the Select Committee on Domestic Violence, lead to ideas about how to improve the courts, especially for lower income parents.

“It’s very sad that some of these folks have been tied up in the courts for decades,” Ma said. She added, “It’s not set up for people who don’t have representation. There is no public defender in family courts.”

Ma also said she wrote her request to allow more flexibility to JLAC because of the complexity inherent to auditing a court system. Lieber’s request languished in JLAC, partially due to an extended health-related absence by former JLAC chair Nell Soto, also now termed out. But Ma said cost may also have been a factor. While she said she did not yet know how much the audit might cost, she said she wrote the request in order to limit the potential expense.

The request specifically directs JLAC to focus on custody disputes in which children were placed in the custody of caregivers who may have been sexual or physical abusers, or who have criminal records. It also asks for the Committee to look into how abuse claims are handled in different courts, and how custody evaluators are appointed.

Ma said she wants JLAC to look at inconsistencies between courts in different counties. For instance, there is a wide disparity in cost of court appointed custody evaluators. The average is $15,000 in Sacramento County, according to figures from the CJE, while the average in well-heeled Marin County is $60,000.

Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, has introduced a bill that would ban the use of “non-scientific theories” in court cases. This bill would prevent the use of a theory called “parental alienation syndrome,” or PAS. This is the idea that one parent seeks to alienate a child against the other parent, leading them to level untrue accusations of abuse or neglect.

“We want to change a harmful family court practice that apparently has gone unchecked for some time, resulting in innocent children being improperly placed,” Beall said. “This legislation requires family courts to follow the legal principals of accepted evidence. The bill ensures pseudo ‘syndromes’ are not used in custody determinations.”

While both mothers and fathers have leveled charges of PAS in custody cases, widespread anecdotal evidence suggests that it has more often been argued by fathers. Several fathers’ rights groups say PAS is real. However, it is not generally accepted by the psychiatric community.

Assembly majority leader Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, said that he also may carry legislation. While he said budget negotiations have been taking up most of his time, he has submitted language to Legislative Counsel which would establish statewide standards for family court custody evaluations.

“That’s something we’re looking at to make sure we’re placing kids in the best, safest environment.”

Several other unbacked bills would seek to address other problems with family courts, said Kathleen Russell, staff consultant with the CJE. Among these ideas: allowing children to testify on their own behalf; removing the immunity of judges and court employees from being sued for misconduct; changing the law so court employees are subject to the California Whistleblowers Protection Act; charging courts, rather than parents, to pay for custody evaluators in order level the playing field between ex-spouses with disparate resources; and mandating that custody evaluators receive the standard 24 training curriculum on child sexual abuse put for by the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law.

“Children are being placed in dangerous homes without protection,” Russell said. “It’s reached epidemic proportions. We couldn’t be more please to have legislators step up to the plate.”

Russell just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where she and other advocates met with legislators, including members of the California delegation. She said she expects federal legislation to be coming soon. Because the federal government heavily underwrites family court costs in the states, it has a great deal of leverage to impose greater standards and consistency.
“We’re looking at the federal flow of funds to the state courts,” Russell said. “That is where the feds can intervene.”

Feds Order States to Search for Adoptable Children

What ‘Terrible Thing’ Happened in 1997?
Feds Order States to Search for Adoptable Children

By Nev Moore
January 2002

In 1997 President Clinton promoted the “Adoption and Safe Families Act.”

It was presented as a way to help abused and neglected children who languished in foster care for years. They were often shuffled among dozens of foster homes, never having a real home and family.

For every child that DSS can get adopted, there is a bonus of $4,000 to $6,000.

In a press release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services dated November 24, 1999, it refers to “President Clinton’s initiative to double by 2002 the number of children in foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed.”

It all sounded so heartwarming. In the stereotype about kids in foster care, we’re told to picture a forlorn, hollow-eyed child, thin and pale, looking up at us beseechingly through a dirt-streaked face. Unconsciously, we pull up old pictures from Life magazine of children in Appalachia in the 1930s.

We think of orphans and children abandoned by parents who look like Manson family members. We play a nostalgic movie in our heads of the little fellow shyly walking across an emerald green, manicured lawn to meet Ward and June Cleaver, his new adoptive parents, who lead him into their lovely suburban home.

We imagine the little tyke’s eyes growing as big as saucers as the Cleavers show him his very own room, full of toys and sports gear. And we just feel so gosh darn good about ourselves.

Wake Up to Reality

Now it’s time to wake up to the reality of the adoption business.

Very few children who supply the adoption market are hollow-eyed tykes from Appalachia. Very few are crack babies from the projects.

When you are marketing a product, you have to provide a desirable one that sells. In the adoption business, that is nice kids with reasonably good genetics who clean up good. An interesting point is that the Cape Cod & Islands office leads the state in terms of processing kids into the system and having them adopted out. More than the inner city areas, the projects, Mission Hill, Brockton, Lynn, etc. ... interesting.

With the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, President Clinton tried to make himself look like a humanitarian who is responsible for saving the abused and neglected children. The drive of this initiative is to offer cash “bonuses” to states for every child they have adopted out of foster care, with the goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that for each subsequent year. They actually call them “adoption incentive bonuses,” to promote the adoption of children.

Where to Find Children

A whole new industry was put into motion. If you have a basket of apples, and people start giving you $100 per apple, what are you going to do? Make sure that you have an unlimited supply of apples, right?

To accompany the new Act, the President requested, by executive memorandum, an initiative entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented and managed by Health & Human Services. The initiative not only gives the cash adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides cash adoption subsidies to adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen.

Everybody makes money. If anyone really believes that these people are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, then I’ve got some bad news for you.

The fact that this program is run by HHS, ordered from the very top, explains why the citizens who are victims of DSS get no response from their legislators.

It explains why no one in the Administration cares about the abuse and fatalities of children in the “care” of DSS, and no one wants to hear about the broken arms, verbal abuse, or rapes. They are just business casualties.

It explains why the legislators on Beacon Hill I’ve talked to for the past three years look at me with pity. Because I’m preaching to the already damned.

The legislators have forgotten who funds their paychecks and who they need to account to, as has the Governor. Because it isn’t the President. It’s us.

How DSS Gets Dollars

The way that the adoption bonuses work is that each state is given a baseline number of expected adoptions based on population.

For every child that DSS can get adopted, there is a bonus of $4,000 to $6,000.

But that is just the starting figure in a complex mathematical formula in which each bonus is multiplied by the percentage that the state has managed to exceed its baseline adoption number. The states must maintain this increase in each successive year. ... Like compound interest.

The bill reads: “$4,000 to $6,000 will be multiplied by the amount (if any) by which the number of foster child adoptions in the State exceeds the base number of foster child adoptions for the State for the fiscal year.” In the “technical assistance” section of the bill it states that, “the Secretary [of HHS] may, directly or through grants or contracts, provide technical assistance to assist states and local communities to reach their targets for increased numbers of adoptions for children in foster care.”

The assistance is to support “the goal of encouraging more adoptions out of the foster care system; the development of best practice guidelines for expediting the termination of parental rights; the development of special units and expertise in moving children toward adoption as a permanent goal; models to encourage the fast tracking of children who have not attained 1 year of age into pre-adoptive placements; and the development of programs that place children into pre-adoptive placements without waiting for termination of parental rights.”

DSS Gets $100 Million/Year in Bonuses
Mass. DSS receives over $100 million/year in bonuses from the federal government. None of that money goes to the general state treasury. It all goes directly to the bureaucrats at DSS.

In the November press release from HHS it continues, “HHS awarded the first ever adoption bonuses to States for increases in the adoption of children from the public foster care system.” Some of the other incentives offered are “innovative grants” to reduce barriers to adoption [i.e., parents], more State support for adoptive families, making adoption affordable for families by providing cash subsides and tax credits.

A report from a private think tank, the National Center for Policy Analysis, reads: “The way the federal government reimburses States rewards a growth in the size of the program instead of the effective care of children.”

Another incentive being promoted is the use of the Internet to make adoption easier. Clinton directed HHS to develop an Internet site to “link children in foster care with adoptive families.” So we will be able to window shop for children on a government web site. If you don’t find anything you like there, you can surf on over to the “Adopt Shoppe.”

If you prefer to actually be able to kick tires instead of just looking at pictures you could attend one of DSS’s quaint “Adoption Fairs,” where live children are put on display and you can walk around and browse. Like a flea market to sell kids.

If one of them begs you to take him home you can always say, “Sorry. Just looking.”

The incentives for government child snatching are so good that I’m surprised we don’t have government agents breaking down people’s doors and just shooting the parents in the heads and grabbing the kids. But then, if you need more apples you don’t chop down your apple trees.

Dollars for Foster Parents

That covers the goodies the State gets. Now let’s have a look at how the Cleavers make out financially after the adoption is finalized.

After the adoption is finalized, the State and federal subsidies continue. The adoptive parents may collect cash subsidies until the child is 18. If the child stays in school, subsidies continue to the age of 22. There are State funded subsidies as well as federal funds through the Title IV-E section of the Social Security Act.

The daily rate for State funds is the same as the foster care payments, which range from $410-$486 per month per child. Unless the child can be designated “special needs,” which of course, they all can.

According to the State Subsidy profile from DSS, “special needs” may be defined as: “Physical disability, mental disability, emotional disturbance; a significant emotional tie with the foster parents where the child has resided with the foster parents for one or more years and separation would adversely affect the child’s development if not adopted by them.”

...But their significant emotional ties with their parents, since birth, never enter the equation.

Additional “special needs” designations are: a child twelve years of age or older; racial or ethnic factors; child having siblings or half-siblings. In their report on the State of the Children, Boston’s Institute for Children says: “In part because the States can garner extra federal funds for special needs children the designation has been broadened so far as to become meaningless.” “Special needs” children may also get an additional Social Security check.

Social Security Money for Foster Parents

The adoptive parents also receive Medicaid for the child, a clothing allowance and reimbursement for adoption costs such as adoption fees, court and attorney fees, cost of adoption home study, and “reasonable costs of food and lodging for the child and adoptive parents when necessary to complete the adoption process.”

Under Title XX of the Social Security Act, adoptive parents are also entitled to post adoption services “that may be helpful in keeping the family intact,” including “daycare, specialized daycare, respite care, in-house support services such as housekeeping, and personal care, counseling, and other child welfare services”.

...Wow! Everything short of being knighted by the Queen!]

The subsidy profile actually states that it does not include money to remodel the home to accommodate the child. But, as subsidies can be negotiated, remodeling could possibly be accomplished under the “innovative incentives to remove barriers to adoption” section. The subsidy regulations read that “adoption assistance is based solely on the needs of the child without regard to the income of the family.”

Mothers Never Get Help

What an interesting government policy when compared to the welfare program that the same child’s mother may have been on before losing her children. She was not allowed to own anything, had to prove that she had no money in the bank; no boats, real estate, stocks or bonds; and could not even own a car that is safe to drive worth over $1000. This is all so she could collect $539 per month for herself and two children.

The foster parent who gets her children gets $820 plus. We spit on the mother on welfare as a parasite who is bleeding the taxpayers, yet we hold the foster and adoptive parents [who are bleeding ten times as much from the taxpayers] up as saints. The adoptive and foster parents aren’t subjected to psychological evaluations, ink blot tests, MMPI’s, drug & alcohol evaluations, or urine screens as the parents are.

Negotiate on Welfare?

Adoption subsidies may be negotiated on a case by case basis.

... Anyone ever tried to “negotiate” with the Welfare Dept.?

There are many e-mail lists and books published to teach adoptive parents how to negotiate to maximize their subsidies. As one pro writes on an e-mail list: “We receive a subsidy for our kids of $1,900 per month plus another $500 from the State of Florida. We are trying to adopt three more teens and we will get subsidies for them, too. It sure helps out with the bills.”

I can’t help but wonder why we don’t give this same level of support to the children’s parents in the first place? According to Cornell University, about 68% of all child protective cases “do not involve child maltreatment.” The largest percentage of those cases are for “deprivation of necessities” due to poverty. So, if the natural parents were given the incredible incentives and services listed above that are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the causes for removing children in the first place would be eliminated?

How many less children would enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget would be reduced from $12 billion to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands of social workers, administrators, lawyers, juvenile court personnel, therapists, and foster parents would be out of business, but we would have safe, healthy, intact families, which are the foundation of any society.

That’s just a fantasy, of course.

May is national adoption month. To support “Adoption 2002,” the U.S. Postal Service is issuing special adoption stamps. Let us hope they don’t feature pictures of kids who are for sale. I urge everyone to boycott these stamps and register complaints with the post office.

I know that I’m feeling pretty smug and superior about being part of such a socially advanced and compassionate society. How about you?

This is a modified version of an article which appeared in our August 2000 edition.

Massachusetts News has written many stories about the perils of the 1974 Act of Sen. Mondale and other problems with DSS. Most of them can be found on the archives by searching for “Nev Moore” or “Ed Oliver."


http://www.massnews.com/2002_editions/01_Jan/0102dss2.htm

Fundamental Right to Direct the Upbringing of One's Child

The Right to Direct the Upbringing of One's Own Child, otherwise known as the Parental Liberty Doctrine, is a crucial civil liberty. It includes direction of a child's education, health care, lifestyle, regimen, religious observance, and discipline. The characterization of the liberty as "fundamental" under the substantive due process of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution makes an enormous practical difference to home educators and court litigants.


"Fundamental" Liberties

In the parlance of United States constitutional jurisprudence, a "fundamental" right is a civil liberty of paramount importance. Whenever an individual can show that the government is interfering with an exercise of a "fundamental" civil liberty, the government has the burden to prove to a court that the government action can survive the "strict scrutiny" standard of court review.

The strict-scrutiny test upholds state intervention as proper only if (1) an authorizing state regulation exists that can be justified by a compelling state interest, (2) the means chosen are essential to furthering that interest, (3) there is a clear and present danger to the interest the state may lawfully protect, and (4) the tactic used is narrowly tailored and the least restrictive means of discharging the government's compelling interest.


"Non-Fundamental" Rights

In contrast to a "fundamental" liberty, other rights are entitled to very limited protection. Whenever an individual can show that the government is interfering with an exercise of a "non-fundamental" civil liberty, the individual has the burden to prove to a court that the government action fails the "rational basis" standard.

The rational-basis test stops state intervention as improper only if (1) the governmental action does not represent a reasonable means to a legitimate state interest, and (2) the relationship between the reasonable means and the legitimate state interest is not at least debatable. The test does not require the government to use the least intrusive or most creative regulatory scheme to achieve legitimate state ends.

Typically, the "rational-basis" test is used as a constitutional justification for the application of the "best interest of the child" statutory (or regulatory) test. The "best interest" test allows government agencies, and judges, to supplant parental decisions about child raising with their own subjective determinations about what is in a child's "best interest."

The "best interest" test is almost totally arbitrary, and in practice it allows virtually unlimited government interference with families. Additionally, governmental agencies often have structural conflicts-of-interest, often related to budgetary incentives, which cause them to systematically act contrary to a child's bona fide best interest. For these reasons, the "best interest" test is only appropriate in divorce cases, or in an adoption placement decision where the consent of a biological parent and any other blood relative are not feasibly available even after the performance of due diligence. "Best interest" is an inappropriate review in other situations where the biological parents are united in their opposition to the government's proposed disposition of a child.

Contrary to the common assumption, children in government care are not in a safe environment. Thousands of children every year are abused, murdered, or developmentally retarded while under government supervision. Often this suffering is because of systemic, multi-party incompetence, corruption, and neglect. In many cases, financial or political incentives built into state and federal law create conflicts-of-interest which compromise the objective judgment of intervening professionals and adjudicators. Often such incidents represent violations of constitutional protections. See Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927); Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972); Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564 (1973); Connally v. Georgia, 429 U.S. 245 (1977); Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton et Fils S. A., 481 U.S. 787 (1987).

Due to "shield laws," information about specific incidents of government child abuse are withheld from the public. Mistreated children who are removed often suffer far greater abuse while in government custody. This dynamic is true for government schools, government foster care, government mental health facilities, government prisons, and government child care.

Government officials and majoritarian populations simply do not have interests which are as closely aligned to a seized child as the interests of that child's parent (who is often a member of a demographic minority). Native Americans and Aborigines, as two examples, have suffered terribly as a result of the "best interest" standard, which was historically invoked to abduct, forcibly educate, and ethnically cleanse many thousands of their children.

The United States Congress realized that the "best interest" standard could be easily abused against large numbers of demographic-minority families, and enacted a higher statutory standard pioneered by Native American advocates to provide an extra layer of legal protection. Ironically, many Native American families on Reservations now enjoy a higher level of practical protection for parental liberty than many white American state residents. See Indian Child Welfare Act Subchapter I, 25 U.S.C. 1912.


Attendant Evidentiary Protections

For temporary or preliminary court orders, such as home searches or child seizures, except for termination of parental custody or visitation, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States requires probable cause.

For final court orders, or for permanent termination of parental custody or visitation, clear and convincing evidence is typically required under United States law. Procedural due process is also required for the parents and child. At minimum, the government must make an initial showing, by clear and convincing evidence, that a parent has inflicted harm by placing the child in clear, present, and grave danger.

The fundamental right to physical liberty is implicated with any restraint of a child's physical body or sensory faculties in a captive informational environment which occurs without consent of the minor's parents, regardless of whether the government restraint is achieved through compulsory school attendance, government assumption of child custody, involuntary hospital admission, containment in a mental health facility, confinement in a concentration camp, forced national "service" to the community, or incarceration in a criminal correction facility.

Irreparable harm is caused even by temporary derogations of First Amendment familial association, or of other fundamental rights such as Fourteenth Amendment family liberty. Such violations may be stopped by injunction or stay. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347 (1976).

Proponents of the "best interest" standard often attempt to trump or entirely sidestep these evidentiary and procedural protections.


Convergence of Parent's Rights and Interests with the Child's Rights and Interests

State interference with the parent-child bond is often framed as a "parental rights" issue. However, the same issue could also be framed as one of state interference with the right of a child. Courts have noted that children have a concomitant fundamental right to the state of well-being which derives from "'the continuity of affectionate care from those to whom [they are] attached through bonds of love."' Roe v. Conn, 417 F. Supp. 769, 776 (M.D. Ala. 1976)(cite omitted); see also In re J.P., 648 P.2d 1364, 1369, 1377 n.13 (Utah 1982)(citation omitted)(“‘prior and fundamental right of a parent to rear his child; and concomitantly, of the right of the child to be reared by his natural parent’”); In re Perales, 369 N.E.2d 1047, 1051 (Ohio 1977). The right described in Roe is sometimes called the Child Liberty Doctrine, for it is a right describing a child's right to be free from harmful and arbitrary state confinement.

A child cannot represent him or herself, and thus has a right to be represented by those who have the most similar alignment of familial, biological, property, and economic interests. When the state interferes with the parent-child bond, it imposes a disinterested caretaker upon the child. Over a long period of time, the service rendered by a caretaker who is motivated by the bonds of affection and/or a close alignment of interests with the child is likely to be quite different than the service rendered over the long term by a disinterested party. Caretakers with professional expertise in some specialty may have a more refined clinical approach to some facet of a child's development, but professionals have no special systemic motivation to apply their services to obtain the maximum benefit for a particular child when assistance requires a significant personal, emotional, or financial investment or risk.

The same concept applies to other concerns that are de facto concerns when parental rights are litigated. For example, parents who are forced to defend against improper state interference often must expend tremendous quantities of time, money, and emotional energy in the effort. Yet if parents' financial resources are depleted defending against state interference, the children of those traumatized parents are also likely to have a lower standard of living and a depleted inheritance.

Consequently, "while there is still reason to believe that positive, nurturing parent-child relationships exist, the parens patriae interest favors preservation, not severance, of natural familial bonds." In re J.P., 648 P.2d at 1377 n.13 (quoting Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 766 (1982)); see also Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 600-03, 610-11 (1979); Dickson v. Lascaris, 423 N.E.2d 361, 363 (N.Y. 1981) ("rule fosters both [parents' and child's] interests by recognizing that they ordinarily converge").

The Parental Liberty Doctrine is really a component of the much broader Family Liberty Doctrine (which overlaps with the Right to Family Autonomy, a facet of liberty oriented towards familial privacy and association). Jurists, journalists, and politicians have tended to focus on "parental rights" or "parental liberty," because parents are often in a better position to assert family prerogatives in protection of the children. Often the public does not understand any term other than the widely-used colloquial expression parental rights. But to be technically precise, the Child Liberty Doctrine protecting the interests of children, as well as the state's interests in general health and safety, are similarly intertwined with and served by the Family Liberty Doctrine. Children and society are better off when children are not treated as creatures or property of the state.

http://www.quaqua.org/standardreview.htm

The Single Greatest Threat to the Socialists

by Mark Godbey
March 25, 2009

It’s not TeaParties, not Elections, its certainly not Republicans.

It’s the Family. The two-parent home. Children being raised by both parents. Whether the parents are divorced or married. Parental rights to rear children and a child’s right to both of his parents. (Grandparents are good, too. Sometimes better.) Where’s the AARP when we need them?

You want to Rebuild America? Emphasize Family Values. Support the Family. The family is the core of civilized society, the safe harbor for children.

Democrats are terrified of two-parent homes. The single-parent home is the largest breeding ground of criminals, alcoholics, drug addicts, unwed mothers, and suicides among children from such homes.

The Democrats could care less about the Republicans, the UN, and Rush Limbaugh. They are just a lot of hot air, no muscle. The mass of two-parent homes terrifies them. “Break ‘em all up” say the Democrats. Subsidize divorce. Pay incentive bonuses to HHS-funded CPS workers.

“Destroy the family, and you destroy society,” said Lenin. Guess what? We just elected the first Socialist President.

The destruction of the American Family is funded by the federal government. That’s right. The wholesale destruction of the black family was funded by the government. Now they want everyone else.

The federal government gives state huge block grants, big pots of money to disburse to single parent homes. Big Daddy government!

In effect the federal government is now Big Daddy. Fathers are not needed. In the eyes of the Democrats it takes only a single parent and Big Daddy to do the job.

Unfortunately, that has never worked. In fact, single parent homes produce more criminals, dropouts, unwed mothers, alcoholism and suicides than any other type of home. Didn’t I just say that?

And these homes are on the rise. Make no mistake. The federal and state governments want it that way. The feds give money to the states to make it that way. The state takes the money for jobs. Pays bonuses for stealing children.

HHS gives CPS workers $4-6K per child head, and $2K bonus for "special needs" kids. Sorta like a bounty on scalps? Might be too young to remember, that one, huh?

Ask the Indians. How many children were taken from their homes up until the Indian Child Welfare Act was introduced? Are the Indian Nations what they once were? How many black children have seen their father in the last year. Certainly not Barack Obama, our first "fatherles" president.

You Decide.

Support Parent’s Right…..The Only Right Left Out of the US Constitution. Let’s make it Right. Get involved. Support Rep. Pete Hoekstra and the Parental Rights Amendment. Become and 10-2 Volunteer.

Support ParentalRights.org

http://bit.ly/1pOIr

Make Parenting a Constitutional Protected Right

The Constitutional Right to Be a Parent

It is time for good parents, both mothers and fathers to unify to codify the rulings of state appellate and federal district courts and even U.S. Supreme Court rulings that affirm from one perspective or another, the absolute Constitutional rights to parent your children.

Consider a state constitutional amendment to codify parent's rights.

Here are some excerpts from case law.

• The rights of parents to the care, custody and nurture of their children is of such character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions, and such right is a fundamental right protected by this amendment (First) and Amendments 5, 9, and 14. Doe v. Irwin, 441 F Supp 1247; U.S. D.C. of Michigan, (1985).
• The several states have no greater power to restrain individual freedoms protected by the First Amendment than does the Congress of the United States. Wallace v. Jaffree, 105 S Ct 2479; 472 US 38, (1985).
• Loss of First Amendment Freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury. Though First Amendment rights are not absolute, they may be curtailed only by interests of vital importance, the burden of proving which rests on their government. Elrod v. Burns, 96 S Ct 2673; 427 US 347, (1976).
• Law and court procedures that are "fair on their faces" but administered "with an evil eye or a heavy hand" was discriminatory and violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 US 356, (1886).
• Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain vital interest in preventing irretrievable destruction of their family life; if anything, persons faced with forced dissolution of their parental rights have more critical need for procedural protections than do those resisting state intervention into ongoing family affairs. Santosky v. Kramer, 102 S Ct 1388; 455 US 745, (1982).
• Parents have a fundamental constitutionally protected interest in continuity of legal bond with their children. Matter of Delaney, 617 P 2d 886, Oklahoma (1980). .
• The liberty interest of the family encompasses an interest in retaining custody of one's children and, thus, a state may not interfere with a parent's custodial rights absent due process protections. Langton v. Maloney, 527 F Supp 538, D.C. Conn. (1981).
• Parent's right to custody of child is a right encompassed within protection of this amendment which may not be interfered with under guise of protecting public interest by legislative action which is arbitrary or without reasonable relation to some purpose within competency of state to effect. Regenold v. Baby Fold, Inc., 369 NE 2d 858; 68 Ill 2d 419, appeal dismissed 98 S Ct 1598, 435 US 963, IL, (1977).
• Parent's interest in custody of her children is a liberty interest which has received considerable constitutional protection; a parent who is deprived of custody of his or her child, even though temporarily, suffers thereby grievous loss and such loss deserves extensive due process protection. In the Interest of Cooper, 621 P 2d 437; 5 Kansas App Div 2d 584, (1980).
• The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that severance in the parent-child relationship caused by the state occur only with rigorous protections for individual liberty interests at stake. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205; US Ct App 7th Cir WI, (1984).
• Father enjoys the right to associate with his children which is guaranteed by this amendment (First) as incorporated in Amendment 14, or which is embodied in the concept of "liberty" as that word is used in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Mabra v. Schmidt, 356 F Supp 620; DC, WI (1973).
• "Separated as our issue is from that of the future interests of the children, we have before us the elemental question whether a court of a state, where a mother is neither domiciled, resident nor present, may cut off her immediate right to the care, custody, management and companionship of her minor children without having jurisdiction over her in personam. Rights far more precious to appellant than property rights will be cut off if she is to be bound by the Wisconsin award of custody." May v. Anderson, 345 US 528, 533; 73 S Ct 840, 843, (1952).
• A parent's right to care and companionship of his or her children are so fundamental, as to be guaranteed protection under the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. In re: J.S. and C., 324 A 2d 90; supra 129 NJ Super, at 489.
• The Court stressed, "the parent-child relationship is an important interest that undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection." A parent's interest in the companionship, care, custody and management of his or her children rises to a constitutionally secured right, given the centrality of family life as the focus for personal meaning and responsibility. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 US 645, 651; 92 S Ct 1208, (1972).
• Parent's rights have been recognized as being "essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free man." Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 US 390; 43 S Ct 625, (1923).
• The U.S. Supreme Court implied that "a (once) married father who is separated or divorced from a mother and is no longer living with his child" could not constitutionally be treated differently from a currently married father living with his child. Quilloin v. Walcott, 98 S Ct 549; 434 US 246, 255^Q56, (1978).
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit (California) held that the parent-child relationship is a constitutionally protected liberty interest. (See; Declaration of Independence --life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution -- No state can deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor deny any person the equal protection of the laws.) Kelson v. Springfield, 767 F 2d 651; US Ct App 9th Cir, (1985).
• The parent-child relationship is a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 f 2d 1205, 1242^Q45; US Ct App 7th Cir WI, (1985).
• No bond is more precious and none should be more zealously protected by the law as the bond between parent and child." Carson v. Elrod, 411 F Supp 645, 649; DC E.D. VA (1976).
• A parent's right to the preservation of his relationship with his child derives from the fact that the parent's achievement of a rich and rewarding life is likely to depend significantly on his ability to participate in the rearing of his children. A child's corresponding right to protection from interference in the relationship derives from the psychic importance to him of being raised by a loving, responsible, reliable adult. Franz v. U.S., 707 F 2d 582, 595^Q599; US Ct App (1983).
• A parent's right to the custody of his or her children is an element of "liberty" guaranteed by the 5th Amendment and the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Matter of Gentry, 369 NW 2d 889, MI App Div (1983).
• Reality of private biases and possible injury they might inflict were impermissible considerations under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Palmore v. Sidoti, 104 S Ct 1879; 466 US 429.
• Legislative classifications which distributes benefits and burdens on the basis of gender carry the inherent risk of reinforcing stereotypes about the proper place of women and their need for special protection; thus, even statutes purportedly designed to compensate for and ameliorate the effects of past discrimination against women must be carefully tailored. the state cannot be permitted to classify on the basis of sex. Orr v. Orr, 99 S Ct 1102; 440 US 268, (1979).
• The United States Supreme Court held that the "old notion" that "generally it is the man's primary responsibility to provide a home and its essentials" can no longer justify a statute that discriminates on the basis of gender. No longer is the female destined solely for the home and the rearing of the family, and only the male for the marketplace and the world of ideas. Stanton v. Stanton, 421 US 7, 10; 95 S Ct 1373, 1376, (1975).
• Judges must maintain a high standard of judicial performance with particular emphasis upon conducting litigation with scrupulous fairness and impartiality. 28 USCA § 2411; Pfizer v. Lord, 456 F.2d 532; cert denied 92 S Ct 2411; US Ct App MN, (1972).
• State Judges, as well as federal, have the responsibility to respect and protect persons from violations of federal constitutional rights. Gross v. State of Illinois, 312 F 2d 257; (1963).
• The Constitution also protects "the individual interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters." Federal Courts (and State Courts), under Griswold can protect, under the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" phrase of the Declaration of Independence, the right of a man to enjoy the mutual care, company, love and affection of his children, and this cannot be taken away from him without due process of law. There is a family right to privacy which the state cannot invade or it becomes actionable for civil rights damages. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479, (1965).
• The right of a parent not to be deprived of parental rights without a showing of fitness, abandonment or substantial neglect is so fundamental and basic as to rank among the rights contained in this Amendment (Ninth) and Utah's Constitution, Article 1 § 1. In re U.P., 648 P 2d 1364; Utah, (1982).
• The rights of parents to parent-child relationships are recognized and upheld. Fantony v. Fantony, 122 A 2d 593, (1956); Brennan v. Brennan, 454 A 2d 901, (1982). State's power to legislate, adjudicate and administer all aspects of family law, including determinations of custodial; and visitation rights, is subject to scrutiny by federal judiciary within reach of due process and/or equal protection clauses of 14th Amendment...Fourteenth Amendment applied to states through specific rights contained in the first eight amendments of the Constitution which declares fundamental personal rights...Fourteenth Amendment encompasses and applied to states those preexisting fundamental rights recognized by the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment acknowledged the prior existence of fundamental rights with it: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The United States Supreme Court in a long line of decisions, has recognized that matters involving marriage, procreation, and the parent-child relationship are among those fundamental "liberty" interests protected by the Constitution. Thus, the decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113; 93 S Ct 705; 35 L Ed 2d 147, (1973), was recently described by the Supreme Court as founded on the "Constitutional underpinning of ... a recognition that the "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment includes not only the freedoms explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but also a freedom of personal choice in certain matters of marriage and family life." The non-custodial divorced parent has no way to implement the constitutionally protected right to maintain a parental relationship with his child except through visitation. To acknowledge the protected status of the relationship as the majority does, and yet deny protection under Title 42 USC § 1983, to visitation, which is the exclusive means of effecting that right, is to negate the right completely. Wise v. Bravo, 666 F.2d 1328, (1981).
• FROM THE COLORADO SUPREME COURT, 1910
• In controversies affecting the custody of an infant, the interest and welfare of the child is the primary and controlling question by which the court must be guided. This rule is based upon the theory that the state must perpetuate itself, and good citizenship is essential to that end. Though nature gives to parents the right to the custody of their own children, and such right is scarcely less sacred than the right to life and liberty, and is manifested in all animal life, yet among mankind the necessity for government has forced the recognition of the rule that the perpetuity of the state is the first consideration, and parental authority itself is subordinate to this supreme power. It is recognized that: 'The moment a child is born it owes allegiance to the government of the country of its birth, and is entitled to the protection of that government. And such government is obligated by its duty of protection, to consult the welfare, comfort and interest of such child in regulating its custody during the period of its minority.' Mercein v. People, 25 Wend. (N. Y.) 64, 103, 35 Am. Dec. 653; McKercher v. Green, 13 Colo. App. 271, 58 Pac. 406. But as government should never interfere with the natural rights of man, except only when it is essential for the good of society, the state recognizes, and enforces, the right which nature gives to parents [48 Colo. 466] to the custody of their own children, and only supervenes with its sovereign power when the necessities of the case require it.
• The experience of man has demonstrated that the best development of a young life is within the sacred precincts of a home, the members of which are bound together by ties entwined through 'bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh'; that it is in such homes and under such influences that the sweetest, purest, noblest, and most attractive qualities of human nature, so essential to good citizenship, are best nurtured and grow to wholesome fruition; that, when a state is based and builded upon such homes, it is strong in patriotism, courage, and all the elements of the best civilization. Accordingly these recurring facts in the experience of man resulted in a presumption establishing prima facie that parents are in every way qualified to have the care, custody, and control of their own offspring, and that their welfare and interests are best subserved under such control. Thus, by natural law, by common law, and, likewise, the statutes of this state, the natural parents are entitled to the custody of their minor children, except when they are unsuitable persons to be intrusted with their care, control, and education, or when some exceptional circumstances appear which render such custody inimicable to the best interests of the child. While the right of a parent to the custody of its infant child is therefore, in a sense, contingent, the right can never be lost or taken away so long as the parent properly nurtures, maintains, and cares for the child.
• Wilson v. Mitchell, 111 P. 21, 25-26, 48 Colo. 454 (Colo. 1910)

Family, not Socialism, is the Answer

By Mark Godbey
March 3, 2009

"Destroy the family, you destroy the country." said Vladimir Lenin. This is the philosophy of socialism and it has become the family philosophy of the American Left. From the very beginning of the socialist takeover of Russia, the ability to destroy a family has been a part of the communist doctrine and was exercised ruthlessly by the state.

Here is United States; it has become almost the same as socialist Russia. The rise of no-fault divorce since 1969 first in California has created the Obama-generation of children that see hopelessness in family since almost half of all children since 1969 have grown up in single parent homes. The single-parent home has become the single largest breeding ground for crime, depression and suicide.

The creation of the heinous family court systems, and foster care child care system subsidized by Social Security Code Title IV, has lead to a disastrous rise in crime from children, murder, unwanted babies, and depression and suicide among children and parents, mostly fathers.

What will it take to stop this slide in to the destruction of this country and the moral backbone of this country, the American Family?

We all can agree, parents do not own their children. We are, however, responsible for their growth and well being. For us, the parents of our children assume the "natural" responsibility that existed before law was created to rear children.

Before countries were created, religions organized, and “rights” were written down, parents have reared their children. Marriage between a man and woman existed before laws. Children were reared by their parents. They were taught by their parents. The village acted in concert with the parents, and each supported the other.

It remains to the most fundamental right that human beings have. It has Never been necessary to make it into a law. Good parents have always taken care of their children to the best of their ability. And at time, a small minority of parents fails. This is when the doctrine of “patria parens,” (the state is “father to the children”) takes effect. But far too often both in education, divorce, and in juvenile justice, the state has over reached its authority, and has taken children from good parents.

We have all heard the atrocities of bad parents, but most parents are good parents. And when confronted by the state most good parents loose custody of their children, during divorce, interventions by school authorities and child protective services, without every going through a jury trial.

Even here in America, you can be accused of a crime, never tried by a jury, and lose your children. Most are granted “visitation”, which is just another name for “termination” of parental rights.

This right existed before the creation of any man-made law. Yet over the centuries of this government, we have seen the actual destruction of this right by the many states of the United States and enforced and mandated by the forces of socialism.

That is why a parent’s rights amendment is necessary. Under the US Constitution, family and parents rights have been left to the state, yet in order to destroy the family, the states accepted money from the federal government for visitation centers, child support and supervised visitation.

This is a direct violation of the 10th Amendment. Federal government interference in family matters. Federal government interference in rights reserved for the state. Parental rights, marriage, juvenile courts, and education of our children is a state matter, a matter for “we the people.”

The long history of family values and parents rights has been layed out for us by the US Supreme Court in many decisions. Here are a few of the decisions have defined our rights for us.

• Doe v. Irwin, 441 F Supp 1247; U.S. D.C. of Michigan, (1985).
• Wallace v. Jaffree, 105 S Ct 2479; 472 US 38, (1985).Elrod v. Burns, 96 S Ct
• 2673; 427 US 347, (1976).
• Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 US 356, (1886).
• Santosky v. Kramer, 102 S Ct 1388; 455 US 745, (1982).
• Matter of Delaney, 617 P 2d 886, Oklahoma (1980).
• Langton v. Maloney, 527 F Supp 538, D.C. Conn. (1981).
• Regenold v. Baby Fold, Inc., 369 NE 2d 858; 68 Ill 2d 419, appeal dismissed 98
• S Ct 1598, 435 US 963, IL, (1977).
• In the Interest of Cooper, 621 P 2d 437; 5 Kansas App Div 2d 584, (1980).
• Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205; US Ct App 7th Cir WI, (1984).
• Mabra v. Schmidt, 356 F Supp 620; DC, WI (1973).
• May v. Anderson, 345 US 528, 533; 73 S Ct 840, 843, (1952).
• In re: J.S. and C., 324 A 2d 90; supra 129 NJ Super, at 489.
• Stanley v. Illinois, 405 US 645, 651; 92 S Ct 1208, (1972).
• Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 US 390; 43 S Ct 625, (1923).
• Quilloin v. Walcott, 98 S Ct 549; 434 US 246, 255^Q56, (1978).
• Kelson v. Springfield, 767 F 2d 651; US Ct App 9th Cir, (1985).
• Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 f 2d 1205, 1242^Q45; US Ct App 7th Cir WI,
• (1985).
• Carson v. Elrod, 411 F Supp 645, 649; DC E.D. VA (1976).
• Franz v. U.S., 707 F 2d 582, 595^Q599; US Ct App (1983).
• Matter of Gentry, 369 NW 2d 889, MI App Div (1983).
• Palmore v. Sidoti, 104 S Ct 1879; 466 US 429.
• Orr v. Orr, 99 S Ct 1102; 440 US 268, (1979).
• Stanton v. Stanton, 421 US 7, 10; 95 S Ct 1373, 1376, (1975).
• 28 USCA § 2411; Pfizer v. Lord, 456 F.2d 532; cert denied 92 S Ct 2411; US Ct
• App MN, (1972).
• Gross v. State of Illinois, 312 F 2d 257; (1963).
• Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479, (1965).
• In re U.P., 648 P 2d 1364; Utah, (1982).
• Fantony v. Fantony, 122 A 2d 593, (1956);
• Brennan v. Brennan, 454 A 2d 901, (1982).
• Wise v. Bravo, 666 F. 2d 1328, (1981).

I would urge any reader to take a long look at supporting a parental rights amendment in your state. Family values, education, religion, and rearing of children, absent a criminal act against one parent or the other, or their children, deserves the protection of the state, and the protection of a trial by jury for any a parent is charged with for termination of parental rights.

It is time for the state of California to stop taking money from the federal government for the “destruction of the family,” as Lenin stated.