Michigan rules derail child support payments

Surcharges cause unemployed parents to fall further behind

Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

Scores of Michigan parents have fallen behind on their child support payments, and state regulations prevent some from ever catching up.

A large percentage of the debt is due to a surcharge the state began applying to delinquent payers in 1996, officials acknowledge. Though designed to encourage parents not to skip the payments, the surcharge has pushed some parents into such a deep hole they can’t climb out.

About $9.2 billion in back child support is owed in Michigan, affecting more than 600,000 children. That’s about two-thirds of child support cases in the state.

With state unemployment at 15 percent, courts and prosecutors that hunt down deadbeat dads are finding some fathers don’t have the money to pay.

“Yeah, I have been falling behind,” said Jeremy Deron, 38, of Westland, who was ordered to pay at least $5,000 in back payments by January.

Deron, who lost his job a year and a half ago as a union bricklayer, said he regularly paid child support for his two sons until his unemployment checks ran out a few months ago. Now he faces a felony charge if he misses the January deadline.

“I don’t have the five grand,” he said. “Now I’m fighting to stay out of jail.”

Michigan ranks third among states with the highest amount of uncollected child support funds. The state surcharge is a key culprit, compounding the debt of delinquent payers by essentially adding interest onto overdue back payments, said Marilyn Stephen, director of the state Office of Child Support.

“The reality is that it seems to have disincentivized payers,” Stephen said.

In some cases, it has scared payers away from making support payments altogether, cutting off needed dollars to children, she added. “It absolutely affects their kids.”

For some who do pay, the surcharge, applied twice a year, has bloated their arrearages beyond what they can manage.

Eric Bivens, 42, said he has regularly paid child support for his son for 13 years.

Though his son turned 18 last year, Bivens is still chipping away at $5,000 in surcharges, applied to arrearages that date to his early 20s.

Now, with his hours cut at the plastics shipping company where he works, he makes a reduced payment of $50 a month.

“I’m probably going to pay $50 for the rest of my life,” Bivens said.

After 1996, the state applied a compounded surcharge of 8 percent on back payments, then modified in 2004 to an uncompounded variable rate, which amounts to a lesser charge.

Interest charges common

About half the states in the country apply some kind of interest payment on unpaid support. Ohio, however, doesn’t add the interest automatically; they are only assessed when a court determines a parent is willfully failing to pay.

Officials in Michigan often point to Ohio when making the case that the surcharge is in large part to blame for the large number of arrearages.

In 1987, the two states, similar in demographics and caseload, each shouldered about $1 billion in back payments. Today, Ohio’s total is $4.1 billion, less than half that of Michigan.

“That to me is a very dramatic demonstration of the impact of the surcharge,” Stephen said.

David Pate, co-director of the Wisconsin-based Center for Family Policy and Practice, said that states with heavy arrearages could face challenges when seeking federal dollars.

“If you have a very high debt in the state coffers, it looks like you’re not making your collections,” Pate said.

Michigan legislators are considering bipartisan legislation that would eliminate the automatic surcharge. If passed, judges would then be required to decide when to apply the charge, like in Ohio. The law’s passage won’t affect surcharges that already have been applied.

“The goal is to be more flexible … and hopefully keep the parents involved,” said Sen. Mark Jansen, R-Gaines Township, a bill sponsor. He said by giving courts discretion, judges can consider the individual circumstances of payers.

“It’s meant to help both” families, Jansen said. He anticipates the bills could be adopted by January.

Wayne County leads state

State authorities have in recent years used the threat of criminal conviction to get delinquent parents to pay.

Since 2003, the state Attorney General has collected $80 million in child support to benefit more than 7,000 children.

Investigators have to spend more time trying to determine which parents are knowingly dodging payments and which simply cannot pay, said Nick DeLeeuw, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

Wayne County has nearly half of the state’s child support cases. Prosecutors there issue felony warrants against parents who owe more than $5,000 and have failed to pay, despite efforts by administrators at the county Friend of Court, the civil body that enforces child support orders.

Last year, the county collected $10.5 million in support for at least 4,000 children.

“I don’t know if we’re going to do as much this year,” said Nancy Neff, assistant prosecuting attorney. “We’re hearing more and more that people aren’t employed.”

Investigators, however, aren’t necessarily accepting unemployment as an excuse for nonpayment. Some parents are getting paid doing odd jobs, Neff said. “Are people in financial straits? Absolutely. Are they completely without resources? No,” she said.

Westland’s Deron said he is.

Since his unemployment checks ran out, he and his girlfriend have stretched her disability checks to pay for rent, food and clothes for her 12-year-old daughter and their 17-month-old baby.

He found out several months ago he had felony warrants for arrearages on child and spousal support. He owes $11,024 to his ex-wife, two sons and the state.

Court documents show support was garnished from his paychecks, unemployment checks and income tax returns since 2005. Deron is scheduled to return to court in January.

“With a felony, I’m never going to get a job now,” he said. “That doesn’t help out my children one bit.”

Mother-Son Incest: Hidden in Shame and Rising

Sons Don’t Report It, ‘Cunning’ Mothers Rarely Suspect It and Society Finds Topic Too ‘Ugly’

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

The molestation began as gentle fondling when Gregg Milligan was 4 years old, but it soon escalated to aggressive touching and eventually beatings that would render him unconscious.

Gregg Milligan was sexually abused and beaten by his mother from the age of 4 until he escaped at…

Gregg Milligan was sexually abused and beaten by his mother from the age of 4 until he escaped at 11. His mother (right), who is now dead, was an alcoholic and a prostitute. Only two of her seven children — Milligan is one of them – avoided addiction and violent behavior.

(Courtesy of Gregg Milligan)

For seven years, until Michigan child welfare workers intervened when he was 11, Milligan was too ashamed to reveal that his tormentor was his own mother.

“She was very brutal,” said Milligan. “Through her difficulty reaching climax, she would become frustrated and violent, hitting and punching and slapping not only my genitals, but my face and body.”

“It was terribly confusing, and it wasn’t just the violation,” said Milligan, now 46, and director of infrastructure for a major health care provider in Michigan.

As bad as the incest was, things got worse. Milligan’s father had left when he was 2, but by the time he was 8, his mother, an alcoholic and a prostitute, invited strange men home who would sexually abuse him.

“Back then I would never tell anyone, not even a sibling,” said Milligan, the most “compliant and sensitive” of three children living at home. “I was just too afraid. It was so horrendous for me to believe she actually would do this to me.”

One of the unspeakable secrets in the world of child sexual abuse is that mothers can be molesters. Often, they prey on daughters, but more frequently their sons — who report increased feelings of isolation and sexual confusion along with thoughts of suicide.

Both of Milligan’s parents are now dead, but his past still haunts him.

“Around 10 years old, I started to get this unbelievable feeling of dread that if I don’t get out I am going to die from the decadence, the debauchery, the forced molestations and the beatings that became more severe,” he said. “For three months I suffered from hysterical paralysis.”

An estimated one in four girls and one in seven boys will be sexually assaulted or abused before the age of 18, according to the Alabama-based National Children’s Advocacy Center . In 27 percent of these cases, the abuse is perpetrated by the child’s parents.

Previous studies of day care workers published in 2000 in the Journal of Sex Research, found that women — without male accomplices — accounted for only about 6 percent of the abuse of females and 14 percent of males.

But more recent national surveys indicate about 12 percent of all child abuse cases are committed by women — “a 100 percent increase compared with previous data,” according to Chris Newlin, NCAC’s executive director.

“We view females as care givers and protectors of children,” he told ABCNews.com. “Now we are beginning to understand females are sexually abusing children, and it is occurring much more.”

Professionals are stymied by public perception that incest is “an ugly subject,” and that women can’t commit such crimes.

“If it’s a 35-year-old female and a 14-year-old boy, we’d say the boy is getting lucky,” said Newlin. “And if it was a 35 year-old male and a 14-year-old girl, we’d call that a pervert.”

To read the rest of the story: Click Here

Male Role Conditioning Exploits the Lives of All American Men

Male disposability is on display on the walls of Valley College’s Behavioral Sciences building.

By Ray Blumhorst | Staff Writer

Names of the dead from the War on Terror are displayed on the hallway walls of Valley College’s Behavioral Sciences building, but those names are just the tip of an iceberg that shows the role of men as the disposable sex in American society.

As of Nov. 4, 2009, there have been 5,268 soldier deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 5,165 of those deaths have been men, according to icasualties.org. More than 98 percent of the war dead are men. By law, women are exempt from front line combat, even though front lines are vague and women have found themselves in deadly situations more than in any other American war. Historically, men are approximately 99.999% of American deaths and casualties, according to U.S. Department of Defense Records. Women are not even required to register for selective service when turning 18, as men are, and men face numerous harsh penalties if they fail to register, according to the Selective Service System.

Every human life is precious, but it appears female human lives are more precious. Given statistic after statistic that points to men’s lives as being expendable at a far higher percentage than women’s, and programs and services far less available to meet men’s needs than women’s, it is obvious men’s lives are not considered of equal value to women’s. American laws and lawmakers are not protecting men’s lives as equally as women’s.

Of the 15 leading causes of death in America, men lead in 12 categories, are tied in two, and women lead in only one, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Yet there is an Office of Women’s Health at the federal level, at the California state level, and at the local Los Angeles county level. None for men exist anywhere in the United States, but other Offices of Women’s Health exist in numerous regions throughout the U.S.

Men are approximately: 94 percent of industrial accidents and deaths, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Men are approximately 80 percent of suicides, according to the Center for Disease Control. Men are approximately 76 percent of homicides, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Men are approximately 93 percent of the prison population, according to “The Sentencing Project.” Men are also a significant percentage of domestic violence victims, according to the DOJ and CDC.

It’s high time that the status of men and men’s health, which contributes to their disposability is accurately and equitably addressed at all levels of government, including college level liberal arts curriculum and men’s studies programs. To do otherwise, smacks of a misandrist disingenuousness that clearly reinforces the role of all males as second-class citizens under the tyranny of a government that does not equally protect, or value, their lives.

Family advocate Joe Jones on the importance of keeping Dad in the picture

Joe Jones knows what it’s like to have a father—and to lose him. Jones spent the first nine years of his life living with his mother and father, who tag-teamed on childrearing while training to become a nurse and a teacher, respectively.

That changed when his parents divorced, and Jones and his mother moved to West Baltimore. He started running with a pack of older kids who were dealing and using drugs. “Not having my father in the household anymore, only having limited contact with him,” he says, “my image of what life was transitioned from that cocoon environment with both my parents to this street culture environment.” By 13, he was using and selling heroin. His addiction to heroin and cocaine would last for seventeen years, during which he would spin in and out of prison.

Since getting clean in 1986, Jones has rededicated his life to another calling: patching wayward fathers back into the families they helped create. He was the driving force behind the Baltimore City Health Department’s Men’s Services program as well as a local affiliate of the national STRIVE employment services program. In 1999, he founded the nonprofit Centers for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, since renamed the Center for Urban Families. The organization provides services ranging from childcare to job training, all aimed at helping fathers provide for, and remain a part of, their families. Jones was a member of President Bill Clinton’s Work Group on Welfare Reform and currently serves on President Barack Obama’s Taskforce on Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families, as well as on several local and national boards of directors.

“When we think about the way in which we have designed interventions for families in our country, it really is code for ‘women and children,’” Jones says.

To Read More….

Blaming the Victim – Male Victims of Domestic Violence

Domestic abuse: One man’s story

By Tanya Mitchell
The Republican Journal Reporter

BELFAST (Oct 14): The names of the people involved in this account have been changed in the interest of telling the story in its entirety, and to avoid compromising any ongoing court proceedings.

When “Jon” first met his ex-wife, “Tracy,” 13 years ago, he never thought their relationship would end in a divorce — let alone a protection order, criminal charges, and a fight to obtain regular visitation with his 4-year-old daughter.

But his four-year marriage has ended that way, and Jon said it is largely because today’s laws pertaining to domestic violence do little to protect men who are on the receiving end of abuse from their female partners.

Jon said things are improving between him and his ex-wife now, and he has his daughter with him for half of each week, but he wants to share his story to raise awareness about how domestic abuse can affect men.

“I’m not doing this to get back at her, I’m doing this to let people know that this stuff happens,” said Jon in a recent interview. “I think a lot of men are just too macho to admit they can be abused.”

While Jon said his ex-wife had occasionally subjected him to physical violence, he said much of the abuse he suffered was mental and emotional.

“It was mostly mental; she’d break me down and make me feel ashamed, like I was two feet tall,” he remembered. “She’d always come with these threats that she was going to take my kid away if I left her, and she made me think she had the power to do so.”

Jon said Tracy was generally a good person, but a combination of mental illness and alcohol use would turn her into a person he hardly knew. He stayed in the relationship as long as he did mostly for his child, Jon said, but he also stayed because he felt he was obligated to stand by — and get help for — his wife.

The couple eventually sought marriage counseling, but Jon said while he learned some helpful tools for dealing with Tracy’s behavior, he remained unhappy in the relationship because the abuse continued almost daily. For example, if Tracy’s behavior became abusive, Jon said the counselor advised him to leave the house. But Jon said he did not want to leave his child behind, and he was worried about what Tracy might do if he took her with him.

“I was afraid she’d call the cops and say I kidnapped her,” he said.

Jon said he did consider contacting a service organization like New Hope for Women to find help, but he said the very name of the organization made him feel as though it wasn’t the best course of action for a man in his situation.

One day, just over a year ago, Jon decided to leave the relationship on his own.

“I finally decided that God wasn’t going to give me an easy way out, so I had to take a leap of faith,” he said.

Jon said he feared what Tracy might do to retaliate, especially when she realized there was no chance for a reconciliation.

“I left, and she started drinking,” Jon said. “She did everything she could do to make me stay. But I left for my kids and for me, and I did it for her, too. I knew it would be better for all of us.”

On the day Jon left, he and Tracy argued about his decision to end the marriage. While he said he was still concerned about how his choice might affect Tracy, he focused on moving on and went to work the next day. That’s where a police officer came to see him, and presented him with a summons for domestic violence criminal threatening.

More…

 

No One Believed Me

When men are victims of domestic violence.

By Glenn Sacks, M.A. and Ned Holstein, M.D.

Four Sacramento County Sheriff’s cars pulled up in front of David Woods’s house. He tried to explain to them what happened. But the lead deputy cut him off: “Yeah, that’s fine. Put your hands behind your back.”

David said, “No, wait, she stabbed me … there’s the knife. See the knife? See my neck wound? See?”

“Put your hands behind your back. Turn around,” the deputy replied.

“No,” David protested. “She stabbed…”

The deputies drew their weapons. David’s little daughters came running out of the back bedroom pleading, “Leave Daddy alone! Mamma tried to hurt him with a knife!”

One deputy, a woman, took the children in the bedroom and shut the door. David stood there, cuffed.

How the fight began

David’s wife Ruth had taken the kids out for a walk in 39 degree weather — for seven hours.

“By the time she got back their fingers were blue, their lips were blue, their ears were blue,” David says. The children were soaked; she was soaked. We argued for an hour. “We had to put them in a warm bath to warm them up; they were hypothermic.

Then she started cutting up vegetables for dinner. She had a serrated vegetable knife with a blade about seven inches long. She turned around and she stabbed at me.

“I tried to block it, but I was surprised. I was off balance…the knife went right through my collar and gave me a little nick on my neck.

“She reared back to stab me again. I tried to block it again…I hit her in the mouth. She dropped the knife, ran to the telephone, called 911, and told them, ‘My husband is hitting me! I think he’s gonna kill me.’

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False D.V. Charge Seperates Father from Family

By Ann Bauer

It was, finally, a cool and dusky night. So we finished our wine then did a remarkably stupid thing: We went for a walk. This was on the island’s only main thoroughfare. I said something bitchy. J said something mean. And I, literally delirious with fatigue, turned to leave and stepped right into the path of an oncoming car.

J ran into the street and grabbed me, throwing me out of the way of traffic and onto the curb. At 6-foot-2 and 200-something pounds, he came down on me pretty hard. My leg was bent under us. A passing car stopped to see if we were OK.

The next thing I knew, five police officers showed with their disco show of red and blue lights. They cinched their handcuffs around my husband’s wrists and hauled him away. J had been drinking, the officers noted (we both had, but this escaped them). He stands nearly a foot taller and outweighs me by 80 pounds. When the good Samaritan stopped J was lying on top of me, pinning me to the ground. It was a clear case of domestic violence, the head cop said.

I scoffed, telling him it was my fault, that I had walked into traffic, my husband was only trying to help.

“That’s what all abuse victims do,” he responded. “They blame themselves.”

“Listen.” The guy, huge and bald, adjusted his belt. “You’ve got to get it through your head, this guy does not love you. He controls you. Even if you were a great homemaker who kept the house spotless, he would hurt you. Even if you were taller and blonder, he wouldn’t stop.”

…but after excusing herself to ponder she returned to impose the order. I was to have no contact with my husband, in person, by phone or email, until some yet undetermined court date that could happen as late as early 2010. I left, unable to speak to J or let him know that I was leaving.

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Men, Myths, and Masculinity in the News 10-16-09

Willingham juror no longer sure of his guilt in Texas case

At least one member of the jury that sentenced Cameron Todd Willingham to death in the arson homicides of his three children says she is struggling with the idea that she might have convicted an innocent man.

It has been 17 years since Willingham was convicted in Texas of setting a house fire that killed his children, a crime Willingham vehemently denied right up until his execution in 2004.

Since that time, three investigations have concluded arson was not the likely cause of the 1991 fire, including one that arrived in Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s office 88 minutes before the scheduled execution.

Perry replaced four of nine members of the Texas Forensics Sciences Commission in recent weeks, just before the commission was to receive a report from the latest of the three investigations.

The controversy has led juror Dorenda Brokofsky to think twice about the decision she made in a jury room in 1992.

“I don’t sleep at night because of a lot of this,” Brokofsky said. “I have gone back and forth in my mind trying to think of anything that we missed. I don’t like the fact that years later someone is saying maybe we made a mistake, that the facts aren’t what they could’ve been.”

“I do have doubts now,” she said. “I mean, we can only go with what we knew at the time, but I don’t like the fact now that maybe this man was executed by our word because of evidence that is not true. It may not be true now. And I don’t like the fact that I may have to face my God and explain what I did.”

Perry’s office said it received a five-page fax on the day of the execution that contained an arson expert’s findings that the fire was not deliberately set.

It is unclear whether Perry read the fax.

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Establishing Paternity at Birth Gives Children a Good Start

The birth of a child is one of the most joyous events in a couple’s life. For unmarried couples, that life-changing experience carries an added responsibility – establishing paternity for their child.

Establishing paternity is one of the most important jobs the Attorney General’s Child Support Division performs, because it guarantees a legal relationship between a father and his child. Under Texas law, a child born to a man and woman who are not married has no legal father. Establishing legal fatherhood is very important. It ensures that children are eligible for child support and benefits such as Social Security, veteran’s survivor benefits and health insurance. Legal paternity also guarantees a father’s rights as a parent, such as making it easier for him to visit his children. In addition, it enables the father’s name to go on the birth certificate, which is important to a child.

Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity (AOP) is one way to establish paternity. The most convenient place and time to sign an AOP is usually at the hospital when the baby is born. The child’s mother and father will likely be present together and eager to secure the child’s legal connection to his or her father.

Most parents come to the hospital planning to put the father’s name on the birth certificate. In Texas, however, a man who isn’t married to the child’s mother has to sign the AOP before his name can go on the birth certificate.

Points to Remember- Establishing Paternity The Acknowledgment of Paternity (AOP) form is available at all hospitals, birthing facilities and child support offices, free of charge. The AOP is for unmarried fathers to voluntarily acknowledge paternity, when the mother agrees.

(Question: So what happens if the mother disagrees?)

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DNA Proves Keanu’s Not a Dad; Mom Begs to Differ

According to science, Keanu Reeves still has no children to speak of.

At least, so says the DNA test the actor submitted to in order to prove that he did not father at least one of Karen Sala’s four adult children.

But apparently, Sala isn’t willing to accept scientific certainty without a fight.

“Ms. Sala is challenging the validity of the DNA testing, so the case goes on,” Reeves’ attorney, Lorne Wolfson, told E! News.

But her client, she added, will not have to take another test.

“If [Sala] wants to challenge it, let her go right ahead,” Wolfson said. “But we are confident that the DNA testing was done properly and that the results are sound.”

Sala asked for $150,000 in monthly child support payments from Reeves, retroactive to 1988, as well as $3 million in retroactive spousal support.

Reeves maintains that he has never met Sala.

E-Online.com

Mississippi teacher gets life for killing lover’s pregnant fiancee

A Mississippi schoolteacher was sentenced to life without parole Wednesday for shooting and stabbing to death her lover’s pregnant fiancee in 2006.

The same jury that convicted Carla Hughes of two counts of murder Tuesday for the death of Avis Banks spared her life, declining to impose the death penalty.

Mississippi is among the states that consider murdering a pregnant woman to be taking two lives.

Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest asked the panel of nine women and three men to sentence Hughes to death based on the gruesome nature of Banks’ murder.

Banks, 27, was found lying in a pool of blood on November 29, 2006, in the garage of the Ridgeland home she shared with Keyon Pittman, the father of her unborn child. She was five months pregnant.

She had been shot four times in the leg, chest and head, and then stabbed multiple times in the face and neck as she lay dying, according to medical testimony.

Prosecutors alleged that Hughes killed Banks so she could have Pittman, a colleague at Chastain Middle School in Jackson, to herself.

Throughout the trial, defense lawyers maintained her innocence and attempted to cast blame on Pittman, portraying him as a womanizer seeking to avoid the burden of fatherhood.

(First, we  continuation of sexism in application of the death penalty. If this were a man, in my opinion there is no doubt the jury consisting of a majority of women would have condemned him to death. Just a few years ago Scott Peterson was found guilty of murdering his pregnant wife and sentenced to receive the death penalty. A large crowd of people actually camped out on the court house steps anticipating the verdict, and cheered in celebration when the punishment was handed down. And second, as is the norm in our society, when a woman engages in destructive behavior to herself and/or others, the first line of defense is to minimize her accountability and responsibility for her actions, by directing blame towards man, men, or the patriarchal society. Her lawyer did exactly this by blaming Pittman in defense of her actions. Men and women will not be equals until women share equal accountability, responsiblity, and consequences for their actions.)

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Men, Myths, and Masculinity in the News- 10/14/09

Marriage Resource Center puts focus on fatherhood

In the quest to strengthen marriages in Carroll County, the Marriage Resource Center has turned its attention to fatherhood.

The Marriage Resource Center brought together more than 100 people Friday morning to a Fatherhood Summit at Grace Hall in Westminster.

Amy Gilford, community relations director and assistant director of the Marriage Resource Center, said promoting fatherhood has become one of the main themes for the group.

“We didn’t start out thinking fatherhood,” Gilford said of the organization, but she said statistics are showing the absence of fathers has negative outcomes on marriages and children.

The summit was arranged so that those in attendance would have a chance to voice their concerns about the lack of services for fathers and the social stigmas and stereotypes dads face, and then work on how to improve them.

Groups talked about why dads are important and then came up with ideas about how to empower and improve fatherhood.

Groups suggested media campaigns with commercials, making Father’s Day a bigger holiday, having more education on the role of fathers and promoting good dads with awards.

The event’s keynote speaker, Rozario Slack, an author from Tennessee who promotes fatherhood, said he liked the format of the event because it gave people a way to feel connected to the issue.

“I think almost every social issue can be alleviated through positive fatherhood,” he said.

Carroll County Times

President of National Baptist Convention Misses Mark on Connecting Children and Fathers

By Robert Franklin, Esq.

The Reverend Julius Scruggs was recently elected president of the National Baptist Convention, a largely African-American organizations that claims 7.5 million members.  So it was interesting to read Rev. Scruggs’ thoughts on the importance of fathers and families to the wellbeing of his parishoners and members of the National Baptist Convention.

He gives those thoughts on pages four and five of this interview (The Tennessean, 10/4/09).  Rev. Scruggs seems to understand the value of fathers to children, mothers and society generally.  He’s obviously read some of the massive accumulation of sociology that shows that, across all lines of race, class, educational level, religion and national geography, children with fathers tend to do better than children without.  They are more likely to avoid drugs and alcohol, crime and prison; they are more likely to stay in school.  If they’re girls, they are less likely to become pregnant.

Women with husbands are less likely to be injured by domestic violence and to live in poverty than are women without.  Men who are active fathers are less likely to commit crimes and abuse drugs and alcohol than are men who aren’t.  They’re also more likely to be employed.  In short, active, engaged fatherhood is good for everyone and we’ve known it for decades.  So it’s no surprise that the Reverend Mr. Scruggs knows it too.

But, like President Obama and so many others, he seems not to know the many ways in which our society separates children from their fathers.  Family and adoption law, of course, are the main ways, but Rev. Scruggs never mentions the law in his thoughts about connecting fathers with children.  Like President Obama, he seems not to notice that courts deny fathers custody in 84% of cases.  He never mentions that those same courts do little to enforce visitation orders.  Temporary restraining orders, issued on little or no evidence and without an opportunity by the restrained party to rebut the charges also get a pass.  The almost entire lack of legal consequences for paternity fraud goes unmentioned.  That’s true too of the child support industry which begins with orders that can’t be paid and ends in many cases with debtors’ prison, an institution many believe to have been abolished in Dickens’ time.

Nor does Scruggs seem to be aware that popular culture is routinely opposed to fathers and fatherhood, portraying dads as either incompetent at or uninterested in childcare.  That’s when it’s not depicting them as an active menace to children’s lives.  To quote the TV comedy/drama Boston Legal, “Denny: ‘Fathers, screw ‘em.’  Allen: ‘Damn right.’”

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Ensuring child-custody protection

Military parents shouldn’t be punished for deployment

By Rep. Michael R. Turner

America’s men and women in uniform place themselves in harm’s way every day without regard for their own safety. They fight for their country and for their families. Given their measure of dedication to our defense, it’s unacceptable that these same soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guard members and reservists would be forced to forfeit their right of child-custody protections just because they are deployed for months or years far from home. The lack of parental custody rights for active-duty military parents remains a stark omission from federal protections granted to our service members.

Unfortunately, the absence of child-custody protections for our military parents is not by accident. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates remains opposed to federal child-custody protections simply because the Pentagon views such protections as “a matter of state law concern.” Rather than working to implement a federal protection that would not infringe upon state law, which I am currently advocating in Congress, the secretary is blocking any such effort, opting to pursue a lengthy and unlikely course of urging each state to change its own laws. Mr. Gates refuses to meet with me to discuss this.

Ironically, the House-passed fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act includes language expanding military-personnel protections in terminating cable-TV, Internet and telephone-service contracts without penalty. The Pentagon has no problem with federal protections making sure a soldier isn’t treated unfairly by his cell-phone company, but guaranteeing his or her right to retain the custody of a child while deployed is not a priority. It’s a disservice to our military personnel to think their leadership does not value their commitment enough to provide needed federal child-custody protection while on active duty.

The faces of our fighting force are a reflection of our diverse society. Military mothers and fathers spend grueling and lonely tours of duty that test and stretch family bonds. But in too many instances, our active-duty military kiss their children goodbye, only to return from deployment to learn that they’ve lost their child-custody protections. This is of no comfort to a mother or father deployed to Iraq who cannot focus on their mission for constant worry that the children for whom they are sacrificing their lives may not be there when they come home.

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CAFC Wins a Major Victory For California’s Disabled Veterans:

California Alliance For Families and Children (CAFC) is announcing another victory for military service personnel and veterans. Today Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 285, a bill to protect disabled veterans disability compensation from illegal attachment and garnishments.

The bill, SB 285, was authored by California Senator Rod Wright. It was introduced at the request of CAFC in cooperation with the American Retirees Association (ARA), a group we have a long association with .

SB 285 codifies existing federal law, United States Code, Title 38, Section 5301 into our states statutes to assure it is followed in our state courts. Although federal law is very clear in its wording and intent, civil court judges nationwide have routinely ignored it. The result has been illegal attachments and garnishments of the disability compensation and erroneously calculating veterans’ disability compensation into divorce settlements as a divisible asset or income.

Once again the experience and effectiveness of CAFC proved its worth. SB 285 passed California legislature without a single no vote, even though similar efforts in Iowa, West Virginia and Oklahoma have failed so far. We hope our victory will revitalize efforts in those states. CAFC is pleased to announce we have already received commitments from legislators in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to follow the California lead.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this announcement this was another national first to correct inequities that veterans have faced in our courts spearheaded by CAFC. CAFC also lead the nation in passing laws to help protect military parents’ child custody rights and fair child support treatment. What CAFC started in 2004/2005 has now led to approximately 30 states passing laws and changes at the Federal Level. For more details on our work for military parents please read this recent AmeriForce story and here.

CAFC wants to express our heartfelt appreciation and gratitude for Senator Rod Wright’s unwavering willingness to stand up for our nation’s disabled veterans and the American Retirees Association for sponsoring the bill. CAFC also want to thank all of the approximately twenty four veterans groups that are part of the California State Commanders Veterans Council (CSCVC) and CSCVS for their support and help.

There is still a lot of work ahead and your help is the only way CAFC can continue our efforts to finish the job. We feel honored and privileged that our efforts are helping. A generous donation to CAFC will help us continue this valuable work.

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Men, Myths, and Masculinity in the News – 10/12/09

Judge: W.Va. shelter rules biased against men

(Note: This is the second legal victory for men’s rights activist in a year proving that domestic violence advocates and their agencies openly discriminate against men and boys.)

A Kanawha County Circuit judge has voided West Virginia’s regulations for domestic violence programs, saying they discriminate by denying abused men access to publicly funded shelters and women abusers access to treatment.

In a decision received Tuesday, Judge James C. Stucky said Family Protection Services Board’s rules for licensing domestic violence shelters, certifying advocates and distributing state funding distort lawmakers’ intent and violate the West Virginia Men & Women Against Discrimination’s right to free speech.

The nonprofit advocacy group sued the state board last year.

Stucky said the state administers its programs on the premise that only men can be batterers and only women can be victims by requiring public shelters to adopt and adhere to the principle of separate but equal treatment based on gender.

“The practical effect of this rule is to exclude adult and adolescent males from their statutory right to safety and security free from domestic violence for no reason other than their gender,” Stucky wrote in his Oct. 2 ruling.

As a result, he said, male victims are being turned away from shelters “even when those shelters are otherwise unoccupied.” Treatment programs also exclude women.

The West Virginia legal challenge is among a growing number of battles being waged across the country by groups that allege state laws requiring gender-neutral programs are skewed by discriminatory rules and regulations that embrace gender biases.

“We’re not trying to belittle women who are abused, we’re trying to raise awareness” that men are also victims, said Marc Angelucci with the National Coalition For Men who secured a similar court victory in California last October.

In the year since the successful California challenge, Angelucci said the state has rewritten funding criteria for domestic violence programs to make them gender neutral and officials are working to provide equal access to all services. One of the biggest changes, though, has been to increase awareness of men as victims, Angelluci said, pointing to a 2001 study by the Centers for Disease Control that showed women are just as likely as men to commit domestic violence.

 

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Administrator Resigns After Falsifying Sexual Assault Statistics

Like all other UC institutions, Davis is highly-selective with very competitive entrance standards. Furthermore, the city of Davis is a low-crime area, compared to other cities in the country its size. In other words, as college “towns” go, it is a relatively safe place.

Yet, for many years, the university has reported that its rate of sexual assault was more than four times the average rate of the other eight UC campuses. That includes places like UCLA, which is located in a much more dense urban area than UC-Davis, and would be a higher-crime area than Davis. In fact, the sexual numbers reported for UC-Davis are substantially higher than the numbers for crime-ridden Detroit! (Even the “corrected” numbers are much higher than sexual assaults in the former Motor City.) However, after someone actually investigated these numbers, it turns out that the university was fudging them.

The question, obviously, is this: Why did UC-Davis fudge its numbers? The source of the false information was Beeman, who used inflated figures to increase the federal grants that the university could receive.

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Cover Up? Innocent Man Executed In Texas?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed a fourth member of a state commission charged with investigating claims that an innocent man may have been executed, his office said.

 

The Texas governor has now replaced all of the four members that, under law, he is allowed to appoint to the commission. The remaining five members are appointed by the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Perry’s critics say his actions are politically motivated, a charge he denies.

The investigation into claims that faulty evidence led Texas to execute an innocent man in 2004 was at a “crucial point” when the shakeup occurred, one of the replaced members said.

The commission was to hear from the author of a scathing report in the case of the executed man, Cameron Todd Willingham, when Perry announced on September 30 that he would replace three members.

Beyler’s report — the first commissioned by a state agency — is the latest of three to conclude that arson was not the likely cause of the 1991 fire.

The session was postponed indefinitely because of the new appointments, and Perry’s critics accused him of trying to quash the Willingham probe.

[The] Forensic Science Commission began investigating the Willingham case in 2008, hiring Maryland fire investigation expert Craig Beyler to examine the evidence used to convince a jury the fire that killed Willingham’s three daughters was deliberately set.

Levy said at the time of his replacement he had told Perry’s office “that it would be disruptive to make the new appointments right now.”

“The commission was at a crucial point in the investigation,” he told CNN. Asked about the future of the Willingham investigation, he said, “I don’t know if it will ever be heard.”

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 Father goes to jail even though he paid child support

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – WAVY.com’s investigation into a local contractor revealed a criminal history of bounced checks and bad business dealings. Now our ongoing investigation of Dan Robinson and RIDG Inc. revealed allegations of unpaid child support from one employee’s paycheck, and that father says if he doesn’t come up with money soon, he has to go to jail.

Michale says a court order required RIDG Inc. take exactly $312.87 out of his paycheck every two weeks. He provided a pay stub that showed the money was removed, but Michael says it never reached his child.

“This man pretty much just robbed me, right in front of me and ruined my life,” he said.

After learning of the non-payment, Michale turned himself into the Portsmouth courts where he spent a day in jail before being ordered to pay more than $4,000 in child support – money he thought he already paid.

He says he’s paid down more than $2,000 of that, but if he can’t reach a zero balance in 60 days, he faces a 90 day jail sentence.

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Internet addiction linked to ADHD, depression in teens

Some children and teens are more likely than their peers to become addicted to the Internet, and a new study suggests it’s more likely to happen if kids are depressed, hostile, or have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or social phobia.

Past research suggests that 1.4 percent to 17.9 percent of adolescents are addicted to the Internet, with percentages higher in Eastern nations than in Western nations, according to the study published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Boys were at a higher risk of Internet addiction than girls, and those who used the Internet for more than 20 hours a week, every day, or for online gaming, were at higher risk as well.

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(NCFM is always open to new members. If interested, contact us at ncfm.org, or ncfm.chicago@gmail.com)

Aiken County Sheriff’s Office looking for 10 “Dead-Beat Moms”

AIKEN, S.C. — The Aiken County Sheriff’s Office is looking for ten “Dead-Beat Moms.” Each of them owes more than $25,000 in and is wanted by the Family Court.

The names of the ten moms are: Debra Key-Creech, Mary Alice Jerry, Marsha Michelle Dorn, Tina Lynn Richards, Tina Renee Ross, Juria Maurieca Robinson, April Lynn Bledsoe, Jennifer Lyn Wise, Patricia Ann Robinson and Kimberly Macomson.

Upson works with teenage boys at Helping Hands by day, and takes care of his five-year-old boy at night.

Upson’s son’s mom owes him child support and has only seen her son twice in the past two years for a total of thirty minutes, Upson said.

“She can come (to see him), it’s all up to her, but she’s not coming,” he said. “She’s basically a dead parent.”

Landy said some mothers don’t want to be a mother.
“There are situations where moms just don’t want that responsibility,” she said.

(For the sake of putting it into perspective, if you include abortion, the number of women who avoid parental responsibility would come close to a million per year.)

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‘Taxpayers should not have to fund feminist porn’

Thursday September 3rd sees the premiere of Mia Engberg’s ‘Dirty diaries’, a feminist porn movie funded by the Swedish Film Institute. Engberg received 500,000 kronor ($69,000) from the Institute to make the movie.

But to argue that girls having sex with girls and women masturbating is somehow a good alternative to mainstream porn feels like a completely alien concept to me, and to many other women. Furthermore, most people would agree that the state should not fund pornography. And when it does, should it really only benefit women, all in the name of equality? If a man had sought and received similar funding for ‘regular’ porn, it wouldn’t have taken long before there was an outcry from supporters of equality between the sexes.

By labeling lesbian sex as feminist, it also contributes to the prejudiced notion that the equality debate is all about excluding men and privileging women.

For the state to decide that feminist porn is art but ‘regular’ porn is reprehensible is little more than paternalistic moralising and sends out all the wrong signals in the equality debate.

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