NPO: Child Support Protest Under Way in Florida

Article here. Excerpt:

'There’s a two-person protest underway in Highlands County, Florida. The two aren’t terribly articulate, but they know what they’re talking about; the points they make are some of the most trenchant on the subject of their protest, which is child support. These two know whereof they speak because they’ve been abused by the system, so they’re passing out fliers on the steps of the courthouse trying to recruit supporters to their cause. Read about it here (Highlands Today, 4/11/14).

Why do I write about a two-person protest? I do so because I consider the pair emblematic of what’s going on all across this country and the English-speaking world. The family law system has become so wrong-headed, so abusive, so anti-father and child, that people are “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” The two, Edwin Padilla and Patricia Austin aren’t going to change the world, but they’ve experienced the injustice of family court and they’re standing up against it. Hey, Rosa Parks didn’t change the world either, but she sure helped. I’ve been researching and writing about family law issues for 16 years and I’ve never seen this type of momentum in the direction of the rights of fathers and children. Padilla and Austin, to their credit, are part of that movement.

Padilla owes over $56,000 in back child support to an ex in New Jersey. But it’s how that huge sum came into being that he’s bringing attention to.'