| Victory—Crucial Bill from Opponents of Recognizing Parental Alienation Defeated!
Fathers and Families and its legislative allies have succeeded in killing one of the worst family law bills in modern history—California's AB 612. The bill, put forward by the well-funded advocacy group Center for Judicial Excellence (and supported by the California National Organization for Women), would have banned Parental Alienation from being mentioned in any way, shape, or form in a California family court. Because of California's tremendous influence in shaping the laws of other states, this loss would have led to a mushrooming of similarly damaging legislation in other states.
Fathers and Families' legislative representative Michael Robinson helped cobble together a coalition of family law professional organizations and experts to oppose the bill. We were able to bottle the bill up in the Senate Judiciary Committee last year and keep it there until last week, when it died. To learn more about the bill, see our co-authored column Preventing courts from considering parental alienation will harm kids (Capitol Weekly, 2/25/10).
The defeat of AB 612 is a victory for the family court reform movement and for children everywhere. Victories cost money, as does our deep, professional involvement inside the political system—please support our successful work by making a tax-deductible contribution by clicking here.
This is the second time in two months that Fathers & Families has been instrumental in defeating a Center for Judicial Excellence bill—in June, we helped kill AB 2475, which was also related to Parental Alienation. To learn more, see F & F Helps Defeat Radical Bill from Opponents of Recognizing Parental Alienation.
Whereas Fathers and Families' family court reform bills have been moving swiftly through the California legislature, the Center for Judicial Excellence is now 0-2 in the 2009-2010 legislative session.
The CJE claims that there's a "crisis" in family courts, and that courts are handing over custody of children to physically and sexually abusive fathers. They promote reforms which will make it easier to deny parents shared custody or visitation rights based on unsubstantiated abuse claims. As we've noted before, there is no empirical basis supporting this claim. The vast majority of the cases that groups like the CJE put forward as alleged examples of this "crisis" of abusive fathers winning child custody are being badly misrepresented–to learn more, click here.
The events surrounding AB 2475 and AB 612 are further validation of Fathers and Families' emphasis on the need for the family court reform movement to employ full-time legislative representatives and engage in the political process on a professional level. To support this work with your tax-deductible gift, please click here.
Together with you in the love of our children,
Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers and Families
Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Chair of the Board, Fathers and Families
Your Letter Wanted: Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Board Demands that Family Courts Enforce Visitation Orders
 "Youngsters need two loving parents in their lives, and if a father has been deemed fit by the courts and is ready and willing to be a good parent, no one should be allowed to stand in his way."–Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Board
After discussing child custody and child support with Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S., Chair of the Board of Fathers and Families, the Editorial Board of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, called for more shared parenting in their Father's Day editorial Making sense of child support in Ohio: editorial (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/19/10). Now the Plain Dealer's Ed Board has come out with a strong editorial calling for enforcement of visitation orders and criticizing the sole custody for mothers norm. To write a Letter to the Editor, click here.
The Board writes: When parents fail to pay child support, the consequences are clear—seizure of driver's licenses, and a new nickname: deadbeat. But when custodial parents—usually mothers—refuse to allow their legally entitled ex-spouse or boyfriend to visit their children, they often escape punishment. Yet both are disobeying a court order.
It's a problem across the country, but it's time court officials in Greater Cleveland find a fair resolution…Youngsters need two loving parents in their lives, and if a father has been deemed fit by the courts and is ready and willing to be a good parent, no one should be allowed to stand in his way…Child visitation works when parents behave as adults and consider what is in the best interests of their children. Let's end the practice of allowing children to suffer collateral damage in the war between parents. The Board also commends a Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court plan to "add a mediation program this fall that encourages parents to come up with a child-visitation plan early in divorce proceedings, before both sides are arguing bitterly over other issues" and calls on "all Ohio courts to put mothers and fathers on an equal plane from the start. Currently, the courts presume that single mothers automatically have sole custody. In an age when many fathers care for even the youngest infants, it's hard to defend that presumption."
The full editorial is Visitation rights must be enforced (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 7/17/10). To write a Letter to the Editor, click here. |
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