By Carl Roberts | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
My guess is that most people, most parents, rarely think about parental rights. Why? Most likely because their parental rights have never been threatened. Their role in their child’s life never questioned or judged. They haven’t been through the drill of a custody battle or had CPS show up at their door. Nor have they had someone at their child’s school secretly try to transition their son into a girl or daughter into a boy.
Most parents are simply unaware that this is happening all around them, every day, until it hits them square between the eyes. Another layer to it is, not only do they not have the lived experience, but they can’t imagine how the systems that were built to protect children often cause far more harm than good. Or that someone would choose an ideology or profit over child safety. But they do.
People either have an inherent trust in government (which is completely nuts IMHO), or it’s beyond their comprehension that they can be the perfect loving, safe, and caring parent and still lose, not only custody, but have their parent-child relationship severed for life. But it happens every day in Colorado, and for the last 10 or so years our legislature has passed bill after bill to diminish parental rights, dismiss due process protections, and harm child safety and well-being.
What’s harder for most to understand is that since the 1970s, and arguably long before, federal and state policies have almost exclusively favored single parent, custodial mother households. Virtually no policies have been passed or funding provided to promote intact families or keeping both parents involved in a child’s life after divorce or separation. Do you believe that government policy incentivizes single parent homes over intact families?
Fatherlessness has long been considered a public health crisis but not a single policy has been passed to address the crisis. Why? I believe fatherlessness wasn’t an accident. It was the design.
Fatherless by design – a crime scene
No-fault divorce was enacted in California under Gov. Ronald Reagan in the Family Law Act of 1969 and quickly spread throughout most of the states. No-fault divorce was early in the second wave of feminism, and it changed marriage from a covenant to a contract. It gave feminists the easy way out they were demanding.
No-fault divorce was the first big step towards destroying the American nuclear family. Today, 70% of divorces are filed for by women, and it’s over 90% when the couple has college degrees. In criminal terms, no-fault created the opportunity.
In tandem with no-fault was the best interest of the child “standard” (aka legal scam) for awarding custody. It was drafted in the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act in 1970.
For all practical purposes best interest gave the courts broad discretion to award custody however they saw fit, which in turn, severely diminished parental rights and due process protections.
No evidence of harm was required to rule, only opinion and or bias. Because best interest statutes are entirely subjective, it was a multibillion-dollar annual revenue gift to lawyers. Best interest is the method.
Then came child support enforcement established in 1975 as Title IV-D of the Social Security Act.
Despite its name, I don’t think child support was created as a benefit to children. It was established as a welfare recovery system for the feds.
Somehow in their asinine brilliance, the feds thought it smart to recover the welfare expense of supporting a single low-income parent, typically a mother, from the low income father.
The problem with tying it to welfare is that if both parents were in the same home, their combined income would prevent the mother from qualifying for welfare. So, mom had a financial incentive from the feds and state to push the father away to the detriment of their child.
Fatherlessness skyrocketed at the time. In criminal terms, child support is the motivation.
Then came VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act enacted in 1994 as part of the larger Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.
This was early in the third wave of feminism. It was part of a broad bi-partisan tough on crime mentality at the time. At least each of the other acts tried to pretend as if they were non-gendered. VAWA didn’t hide it.
Then and now, it remains arguably the most blatantly sexist act ever passed. In essence, VAWA provided all the weapons necessary to quickly and legally remove a loving father from a child’s life.
The weapons? False allegations without fear of accountability, restraining orders for leverage instead of protection, presumption of guilt instead of innocence, and general gender bias that men are primarily perpetrators and women are victims.
There’s more here than we can cover, but VAWA is a cornerstone reason why systems do more today to exploit families than protect children.
Exploitive systems
I know it can be triggering for mothers who have been through the drill for me to claim family court and CPS were designed to favor mothers over fathers, but hear me out.
The above policies are fact, not my opinion. And the data around fatherless, child support, and DV speaks for itself. More fathers than mothers lose custody, pay child support, and are falsely accused of DV and child abuse. Period. But that’s not the point.
Today’s systems, family court, child support, CPS, and DV arguably cause far more harm than good to moms, dads, and children.
They provide an equal opportunity, regardless of gender, to have your life and family destroyed. Your outcome in court is a crap shoot, dependent on who likes you and who doesn’t. Because of best interest, from judges to CPS caseworkers to police officers, everyone has broad discretion to do as they please WITHOUT any or very limited accountability. Judges have judicial immunity, everyone else has qualified immunity.
Caseworkers can lie through their teeth, the police can turn a blind eye, and judges can rule based on their opinion, explicit bias, or if they like your lawyer or not. Because best interest is entirely subjective, they don’t need evidence or facts to support their ruling. If they so decide, they can return a child to a demonstrably unfit or unsafe parent as a favor to the lawyer they like.
Parental rights – your #1 voting issue
I understand that everyone is sick of left and right, and because of that most just don’t vote.
But for the sake of your children, your family, and your parental rights I implore you to vote.
But first, educate yourself on the candidate’s position on parental rights. For the incumbents in State Senate and House races, they each have a voting record and how they stand on parental rights is clear.
Over the last 8 years, most every Democrat has consistently voted to diminish your parental rights, due process protections, and decrease your child’s health, safety, and well-being. Don’t take my word for it. Do the research yourself.
Please join us on November 21st at the Capitol for the 2nd Annual Men & Families March.
Carl Roberts is founder of Colorado Resilience and long-time advocate for shared parenting, parental rights, due process, and for reforming family court, CPS, child support, and domestic violence systems. His mission is to protect the health, safety, and well-being of children whose parents separate or divorce or who have become targets of the systems meant to protect them.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.