From: Ken.Pangborn@f20.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Ken Pangborn)
Newsgroups: alt.dads-rights
Subject: Re: Second try - Reproduc
Date: Mon, 07 Dec 92 08:27:11 PDT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:3603/20 - Mercury Opus NEC360, St Petersburg FL

DE>I keep seeing this phrase "walking wallets" thrown around. It seems
DE>as though the people using the phrase think that everyone who believes
DE>that a man should take financial responsibility for his child wishes
DE>to reduce the father to nothing more than a "walking wallet". Who
DE>ever said this? Is it so unfair to expect a person to take
DE>responsibility for their actions? Or just inconvenient?

        The term is fair. Men's groups have been active for years fighting to
have joint custody laws, and/or visitation enforcement statutes passed. Those
efforts have been met with strident resistence from women's groups. And 
not without considerable success in reducing the parental status of divorced 
fathers to the level of a joke. 

        In most states, a MAN (but NOT a woman) can be charged with the
felony of "non-support." While the laws are seldom applied, there is a growing
push to make child support arrearages a FEDERAL FELONY and to establish a
central Federal "Work Camp" to send the MEN. Notice I am being gender specific
Because the proposed laws ARE gender specific! Some overtly so. 

        There is a MASSIVE bureaucracy to enforce child support. There is NO
such bureaucracy to enforce parental rights for fathers! AND.... What's
more.... when it has been proposed that there BE some mechanism... Women's
groups like N.O.W. have come unglued about it! Need specifics? Care to examine
CURRENT loobying efforts of California's (and the National) N.O.W. to end
joint custody? Or to examine New York's N.O.W. forcing Governor Cuomo
to veto a joint custody bill there? Or, the Ohio group, A.C.E.S. written
campaign to have states pass laws FORBIDDING visitaion entirely?

DE>   Rights 1-3 are to be grounded on the basis of a declared right to choose
DE>   whether or not to be a parent with the rights and responsibilities which
DE>   attach to same. Further, rights 1-3 are to apply regardless of the marit
DE>   status of the parties. This is to recognize that people marry for reason
DE>   other than procreation.

        Can a MAN choose NOT to be a parent in the same way a woman can?

DE>Now, -this- provision I like. I am in agreement with the (apparent)
DE>premise of this provision that courts and statutory schemes have
DE>tended to favor a sort of "default" custody to the mother. I might
DE>add, though, that this has been changing.  Many states now are moving
DE>toward a preference for joint custody, and fathers are getting custody
DE>more than they used to.  

        NOT TRUE! In EVERY state where a joint custody law had been enacted
there is a quite visable and strident campaign to end the laws. California,
for example, has, over the pat 10 years, gutted their joint custody law,
making it a shell of its former self, and joint custody is only two words
in a law book. And fathers are getting custody LESS than they used to!

DE>   Also, there has been a move away from the tender years doctrine in 
DE>many jurisdictions.  

        There was a move away from the "Tender Years Doctrine" in the 70's,
but today we don't call it that any more. We call it "Primary Caretaker"
and it is ALIVE and well! 

DE>     Nevertheless, there is still a lingering presumption in favor 
DE>of maternal custody, which ought to be abolished. It should be presumed 
DE>that the parents are equally capable of caring for the children. If 
DE>there is some reason that presumption is not warranted in a given 
DE>case, then an alteration

        Was that a news flash? There is not only not any scientific evidence
that women do better as parents than fathers, there is evidence that
contradicts such old myths.



 * SLMR 1.05 * IF YOU CAN'T DAZZLE THEM WITH BRILLIANCE BAFFLE THEM WITH

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