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Robert Franklin: Case shows need for fathers' rights
Submitted by anthony on Sat, 2011-01-22 16:17
Article here. Excerpt:
'On Jan. 4, a trial court in Bakersfield terminated the parental rights of 17-year-old Christian Diaz. The court didn't terminate Diaz's rights because he's a bad person; he's not. He has no criminal record, no record of drug or alcohol use; he's on the football and baseball teams at his school and holds down a part-time job.
What lost Diaz his son was the fact that he's single. Had he been married to his girlfriend, he'd have had all the rights of any other father, but Diaz, like 40 percent of all new fathers nationwide, is unmarried.
And under California law that means that he, unlike married fathers and all mothers married or single, must take special steps to prove that he's qualified to be his child's father.
...
For decades now, we have rightly promoted the cause of gender equality in many areas of life. It is past time that the state of California made its laws on parental rights gender-neutral. The welfare of children depends on it.'
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Comments
I Just don't get this
I Just don't get this ruling. It doesn't match up with the legal advise I received during my experiences and it does not seem consistent with the intent of the Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) that California has adopted. Could the judge have gone rogue? .
Here is what California's legal code says in the section of family code (the header indicates these codes were adopted from UPA):
Code 7602. "The parent and child relationship extends equally to every
child and to every parent, regardless of the marital status of the
parents."
I read all the codes about establishing paternity, and bringing the child into the father's home is just one of several options. To me it appears that he met other options (IMO, he should not have to meet any of these subjective criteria after the DNA test proves he is the father).
This is terrible and is nothing less than stealing babies!
We need improved adoption laws that will offer more protection for fathers and stiff fines for irresponsible adoption agencies.
PS- I don't know if it will
PS- I don't know if it will help, but my uncle is an attorney for the state of California, he works in the governor's office - he has two adopted siblings so he is concerned about adoption laws, and I have done some work with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. I think I may call and mention this case to them and see if they might be able to offer something. I realize they usually advocate to promote adoption, but they are also concerned with all aspects of adoption including integrity of the adoption industry and improving adoption laws
Nice catch-22
So he can't be legally recognized as a father unless he does something (bring the child home) which he needs to be legally recognized as the father in order to make sure it happens.
Imagine if this worked both ways: "I'm sorry miss, but you can't take the baby out of the hospital. You aren't legally the mother until you take the child home."
There are so many things
There are so many things wrong with this.
Couldn't a man be charged with attempted kidnapping since he isn't legally the father until the child is physically in his home?
Like I said in my previous post, California law lists several things the unmarried father can do to establish paternity. One was bringing the baby into his home, another was offering to support the child, which I see every indication that he did.
There were about five things to choose from. I don't agree with any of this as it is very gender biased that a father would have to jump through so many hoops.
We have DNA, and we have a willing father - apparently this is not good enough!
What I particularly detest
Is that we have two standards for fatherhood.
If the father wants to take care of the child, he has to jump thru hoops.
If the state wants the father to pay for the child, any reason will work.
Sorry. We need ONE standard of fatherhood! I personally feel that standard should be biology, but that debatable standard is less important than having said decided standard work both ways.