June 20,
2007
Column #1,347
"Taken Into Custody"
by Mike McManus
Father's Day was not joyful for millions of fathers who had a divorce forced
upon them, whose children were "taken into custody" by the mother who filed for
the divorce.
Indeed, Stephen Baskerville is a father who feels "taken into custody," since he
can't see his children, when it's not authorized. For example, Father's Day
fell on a weekend when he did not have custody. Fortunately, one daughter had a
piano recital, and he was able to attend and chat with her and her sister for a
few minutes afterward. That was his Father's Day.
Baskerville has written an important book not yet released by Cumberland House,
"Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage and the Family."
He purposely does not tell his own story, because he doesn't want to be
dismissed as an angry father. However, as the President of the American
Coalition for Fathers and Children, he has a national perspective on what
happens to perhaps 700,000 fathers a year, 7 million in a decade, when their
wives file for divorce.
Very few fathers file for divorce Why? Consider Massachusetts, where custody is
granted to the father in only 2.5 percent of cases, but the mother gets it 93.4
percent of the time, and joint custody is permitted in only 4 percent. In a
divorce, fathers lose regular access to their children.
However, even if the mother is an adulterer, who moved in with a boy friend,
fathers lose their kids thanks to "No Fault" divorce laws in which the court
won't consider who is at fault. Why not? Surely, in this case, the father
would be the better parent. "No matter how faithless," writes Bryce Christensen,
"a wife who files for divorce can count on the state as an ally."
The court says it is acting in "the best interest of the child." What rot. The
best interest of the child would be served by the court telling the couple to
work out their differences, leaving the child with a married mother and father.
That virtually never happens. Whoever files for divorce always gets it. There is
no defense. The U.S. Bill of Rights supposedly protects citizens against being
"deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law."
Where is "due process" if a divorce is always granted?
"The advent of No Fault divorce in the early 1970s...has left fathers with no
protection against the confiscation of their children," writes Baskerville. As
this column has argued, No Fault should be called Unilateral Divorce, because
what was entered into by two people is typically ended when one spouse calls a
lawyer.
"The result effectively ended marriage as a legal contract. Today it is not
possible to form a binding agreement to create a family," argues Baskerville.
Children need the protection of that law for at least 20 years.
Children of divorce are three times as likely to be expelled from school or to
get pregnant as a child from intact parents, and are five times as apt to live
in poverty.
Arguably, the whole of Western civilization is built upon the enforcability of
contract law. "A society without contracts lives in mud huts, except for
dictators. A contract is needed for people to cooperate to build something
larger than themselves," says attorney John Crouch.
But when a spouse's feelings change, the solemn oath "till death us do part," is
worthless. What's more, the law takes the side of the miscreants and punishes
their victims.
A typical father sees his kids every other weekend. He must move from his own
house, rent another, and often pay confiscatory child support. Baskerville paid
65 percent of his $38,000 income as a Howard University professor. He still pays
for day care for children, aged 10 and 14, who don't go.
If he doesn't pay, he can be jailed, without a trial.
Why not ask the court to lift the day care charge? "It would cost me $10,000 to
go back to court. And going back to court is risky. It could take away my
right to see my children."
Baskerville makes a case that the "divorce industry" of lawyers, court-appointed
psychologists, and judges who depend on them for campaign contributions and
state legislators who are often divorce attorneys - will never reform itself.
The only hope is if religious leaders fight for change. The Catholic bishops
have been considering the marriage issue for two years, but are not calling for
divorce reform. They are issuing TV spots endorsing marriage.
How lovely and how irrelevant.
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