Article on Dr. Newdon

[MYSONSDAD]

From the New York Times
October 23, 2004

//www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/nyregion/23custody.html?ex=1099195200&en=e927c537
19657bd9&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1

Lawyer Who Fought Pledge Assails Courts on Custody
By LESLIE EATON

Keith Bedford for The New York Times

Michael A. Newdow spoke at New York Law School yesterday.  
 
He became famous this year for arguing his own case before the
United States Supreme Court, in what onlookers described as a
spellbinding (though ultimately unsuccessful) challenge to the
reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.

Now Michael A. Newdow is taking on a new target: family law and the
way it handles child custody. "It's outrageous, it's inane," he
said. "It ruins lives." And, he argued, it tramples on basic
constitutional rights.

Dr. Newdow, a lawyer and emergency-room physician, made his first
public presentation on this topic yesterday at New York Law School.
He spoke to a group of law professors and students invited by Nadine
Strossen, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a passionate, rapid-fire speech that lasted more than an hour,
Dr. Newdow described problems with the family-law system, which
makes custody decisions based on the "best interests of the child."

But that is "a meaningless standard which you can't fight," Dr.
Newdow said. Which is best for children, he asked, to teach them to
be generous or to teach them to be stingy? To spend time on
Shakespeare or on baseball?

"Which is better? We don't know," he said. And there are no valid
studies that answer the question of what is best for children, he
said. Instead, judges simply impose their own biases about what they
think is best, with no checks or balances.

In addition to being unconstitutionally vague, Dr. Newdow said, the
best-interests focus puts the rights of children above the rights of
parents, which is inequitable.

Courts say they are not concerned with parents, only with what
happens to children - but that does not square with rights to due
process, he said. "Judges actually verbalize this: 'I'm not going to
be fair to you.' " And the legal system does not treat parenthood as
a fundamental constitutional right, even though the Supreme Court
has described it as "perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty
interests we have," Dr. Newdow said.

For many parents, he said repeatedly, being separated from their
children is "worse than rape."

Dr. Newdow stressed that he believes the government has the
obligation to protect children from harm. But absent abuse or harm,
he argued, the government should not impose conditions on parents
who are before the court that it would not impose on intact
families, like telling parents where to live or how to behave.

The solution Dr. Newdow proposes for many of these problems is a
presumption that parents should share custody evenly.

That proposal is popular with fathers' rights groups, which are
trying to have it adopted by courts and legislatures around the
country, arguing in part that it is better for children to have both
parents involved in their lives.

Psychologists generally agree in cases where the parents can
cooperate, but raise concerns about joint custody's effect on
children where the parents are engaged in constant strife. And some
experts warn that parents who insist on a strict division of
custodial time are less interested in what is good for children and
more interested in lowering child support payments or in controlling
their former spouses.

In New York, court decisions have held that joint custody is
inappropriate in so-called high-conflict cases.

But Dr. Newdow argued that the fundamental unfairness of current
custody law increased the conflict.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that because Dr. Newdow did not
have legal custody of his daughter, he did not have the standing to
challenge the constitutionality of the daily recitation of the
Pledge of Allegiance at her school. An atheist, Dr. Newdow had
argued that the "under God" phrase in the pledge violated the
separation of church and state.


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"Children learn what they live"

[Bolivar]

In stories like this they always include this so called experts saying....

"And some experts warn that parents who insist on a strict division of custodial time are less interested in what is good for children and more interested in [EM]lowering[/EM] child support payments or in [EM]controlling[/EM] their former spouses."

What about the parent who is interested in [FONT SIZE="+5" COLOR="RED"] [EM] RISING [/EM] [/FONT] child support (adult support) payments by NOT allowing the other parent more companionship time and controlling the now weekend visiting parent!!

[MYSONSDAD]

Somehow they always leave that part out...

"Children learn what they live"

[Davy]

... all women are assumed to be be 'good' for children thus allowing women to use children to perpetuate their own self-worth while gaining financially and controlling men.      

Seems the social messages are just the opposite of reality while children suffer.