Dr. J Michael Bone, PhD, one of the nation’s foremost experts on Parental Alienation, recently sent me this letter notifying me of a new, anti-father Florida law. Bone writes:
“House Bill 77, entitled the ‘Keeping Children Safe Act,’ is very flawed and will probably be challenged on a constitutional basis. Until this occurs, it has the potential to wreak havoc on many fathers. The bill went into effect on July 15, 2007. The subject of the Bill, as the title suggests, is for the safety of children. However as we both know these attempts to create legislation for protection also become portals whereby falsely accusing parents can successfully separate children from a parent (typically fathers).
“Here are some of the chilling details.
“Visitation is automatically stopped once a telephone report is made, essentially from any source, alleging sexual abuse. No questions asked. The caller also remains anonymous. Visitation continues to be interrupted, until the court has a hearing about this, at which point, the court may allow visitation to resume. It sounds to me like there is an implicit presumption of guilt versus one of innocence. This however is nothing new.
“At the hearing, the accused must prove by clear and convincing evidence (the highest of legal thresholds), that the safety of the child would not be threatened by continued visitation.
“Even if the accused is victorious at the hearing, the court may then permit continued visitation, but it s not required to reinstate the prior schedule.
“At the hearing, the court may rely on evidence that is not admissible in court. This could mean hearsay, outright lies, you name it.
“If such allegations are made in the first place, the court must then appoint a GAL or an Attorney ad Litem, with special training in the detection of sexual child abuse. First, the law does not specify what kind of training would be required. However, even if it was substantial training required, we must be reminded that investigation of allegations of sexual abuse is among the most complex and difficult clinical evaluative areas that exists. Even the most otherwise competent clinician, can and does often bungle this. We must also keep in mind that there is no accepted psychological instrument that is thought to be reliable in this area. So, in essence, the court is appointing a lawyer or sometimes just a volunteer that took a GAL course to do the equivalent of psychological brain surgery.
“If that is not enough, subsequent to the original allegations, if the court hears from the child, though any source (read the other parent), that the accused is trying to influence what the child says, then visitation is immediately suspended. No questions.
“Further, if the child is in therapy, the therapist may be asked to opine about the wisdom of continued visitation. When we are reminded that, therapists for alienated children most often buy directly into what the alienated child is saying, one can see how this will basically authorize and then protect a therapist from opining about that which they as a therapist should not be opining about at all. We all know that in alienation cases, the therapist is most often heavily influenced by the alienating parent.
“Obviously, this new legislation slipped under the radar and is now law in Florida. The concerns that I have are the obvious ones: that the purpose of this legislation, to protect children from being sexually abused, is much more likely to have the effect of supporting the process of alienation. I do believe that this law will be significantly corrected or repealed since it truly does violate certain civil rights, and ignores due process. However we know that this will take considerable time, and until then many fathers will be at great peril of losing their children.”
The text of the bill can be found here. It’s passage “under the radar” is another indicator of the weakness of our movement. We should have a full time legislative associate/lobbyist in Tallahassee who would have picked up on this bill and helped organize opposition to it. Like Michael Robinson of the California Alliance for Families and Children recently did with AB 612–to learn more, see Good News: Bill to Make It Harder to Protect Children from Parental Alienation Dies.
|
Rate this post:
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Stumble It!
amfortas said,
The people who bring in these laws, and as you point out, sneak them in the back door, deserve absolutly no mercy. They deliberately wreck lives. They do it in an underhand way. They get others to do it for them. Their hatred knows no bounds and each ‘win’ that they achieve is added to the last one and the next one.
Maybe the good folk of Florida could each choose a politician and make an anonymous call.
August 20, 2007 at 2:11 am
CaptDMO said,
This bill was introduced by …..Name, district, office address
This section was written by…. Author
Testimony was given by…… “Expert”/ dupe
At the behest of….. Fla. constituency front-group
It was added at THIS time… Inception, after introduction, “clerical’ correction, etc.
The voting record is HERE…. Complete Fla. Legislative voting record site, or at least
the record on this bill/law.
August 20, 2007 at 6:12 am
TheManOnTheStreet said,
Even if a father is absolved of all accounts of allegedness (is that a word), the stigma is in place. He will almost assuredly be considered a monster by SOMEONE…SOMEWHERE…. especially if the media gets its hands on it…
TMOTS
August 20, 2007 at 6:23 am
DcFather2 said,
Is that code for “fathers only”?
And what happens if there are anonymous or non-anonymous allegations of sexual abuse against the “custodial” parent (mother), say for instance coming from the child who is being molested, and there is along list of professional witnesses, instead of one anonymous caller? What if, in addition to allegations from a child against the custodial parent (mother), and a long list of witnesses, the custodial parent (mother) also has a family history of incest and pedophilia, including a brother in prison for it?
Wait, don’t answer, I already know the answer. Been there, done that. The allegations against the mother get swept underneath the rug, and a witch hunt against the father ensues. No, they probably won’t accuse the father of doing what the mother is doing, because then the evidence against the mother is more likely to be admissable. But they’ll find something, anything, and proving his innocence won’t help the father either.
My ex-wife lied in court a hundred times in an effort to prevent me from ever seeing the children again. How did she finally succeed? By molesting them. That’s right, mom molests, they get rid of dad for being dumb enough to let the child report it to “Child Protective Services”.
What we have now in America is a government that upholds a mother’s right to molest children as being superior to basic settled fundamental laws set forth at the dawn of this once great but now thoroughly corrupt nation. Anybody who actually believes this law is designed to protect children deserves to live in the ghetto that is our future. Unfortunately, its the children along with innocent fathers who will suffer the most, while the special interest groups like the ABA and NOW who profit from the criminalization of fatherhood will laugh all the way to the bank, and then follow that up with a hefty campaign contribution to the policiticans who are pimping out our children, like these Florida legislators.
August 20, 2007 at 7:56 am
mruffolo said,
For example
Domestic Violence Victim Protection Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.203.IH]
Whereas one in four women will experience domestic violence sometime in her life; (Introduced in House)[H.RES.590.IH]
Violence Against Children Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)[S.1296.IS]
Whereas Guatemalan women were among the victims during the 36-year Guatemalan internal armed conflict which ended with the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords and ushered in the process… (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)[H.RES.100.EH]
Safe Schools Improvement Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)[H.R.3132.IH]
National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act (Introduced in Senate)[S.1515.IS]
Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.1369.IH]
Pregnant Women Support Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.3192.IH]
Violence Against Immigrant Women Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)[H.R.2388.IH]
Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)[H.R.3395.IH]
Whereas there are more 3,000,000,000 women in the world, representing 49.7 percent of the world’s population; (Agreed to by Senate)[S.RES.102.ATS]
http://thomas.loc.gov
August 20, 2007 at 11:15 am
mruffolo said,
RESOLUTION
Supporting the goals and ideals of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress should raise awareness of domestic violence in the United States and its devastating effects on families and communities.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:5:./temp/~c110s9G7TC::
August 20, 2007 at 11:24 am
Robert Stevens said,
I believe when the forces of tyranny and opression cross a certain threshold, they can no longer be ” straightened out” , they are totally corrupt and being taken out is the only thing we can do with them. Like a convicted murderer on death row waiting to go to the electric chair, they will kick and scream and say it is not fair that they are going to be punished for what they done. Well its not really punishment it more like taking out the trash or puting a bullet in a rabid dog brain. All reasonable and peacefull methods have been exhausted and not we have to get tough and come down hard on the bastards.
August 20, 2007 at 6:37 pm