By Rinaldo Del Gallo, III, Esq.

I would like to convey some�brief thoughts on this year�s Veterans Day. Those who fought in our countries wars fought to preserve freedom. By �freedom� I mean not freedom to do whatever we want, but freedom to engage in fundamental rights. Today, however, our country has deprived fathers of some of the most basic rights. From time to time, it is a worthy endeavor to make a cursory observation of our basic rights.��

1. THE RIGHT TO FAMILY: Our nations family courts have deprived of us the right to be with one�s child.� We are becoming a fatherless nation. (It is also in many cases impossible to live with our wives if they are foreign born.)

2. THE RIGHT TO TRAVEL: One of the most basic rights�the right to move about�has been reduced to a chimera by pulling driver’s licenses. �For failure to pay a debt�child support�fathers are being denied the means to go to work, shop, attend worship services, meet friends, attend meetings, and provide care and aid for relatives and friends.

3. THE RIGHT TO EQUAL TREATMENT OF THE LAW: Every day in family court, we as fathers are denied our equal dignity for no more a reason then our gender.� These type of forgone conclusions based on our gender is un-American.

4. THE RIGHT TO EXIST AND SURVIVE: Child support levels (when coupled with taxes) are so staggeringly high, that to pay for child support (which pays for the mothers cost of living�not the incremental cost of having a child) one has to deprive oneself of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.�While the childsupport guidelines in each state�are high in and of themselves when real numbers are used,� judges often make up incomes to �attribute� to an individual.� This makes the debt�amount owed actually�consuming, if not outright surpassing actual income. Retroactive modification has been outlawed under federal law (thanks to former Senator Bill Brady), and there can be no relief in bankruptcy. (President Roosevelt referred to this as the �Freedom from Want��a similar, if not identical right.)

5. THE RIGHT TO SPEECH: I was arrested for gathering signatures at a Post Office while running for political office�many believe I was singled out (the practice had gone on for generations)�because I am a father�s rights activist. One father, Kevin Thompson, had his book banned by a Massachusetts family court judge.

6. THE RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS OF LAW: We are not allowed to meaningfully speak at our proceedings. Judges are not listening. Fathers are being yelled at and otherwise spoken to disrespectfully by judges. Outcomes are foregone conclusions. Our courts are so teeming with women who want to dump their husbands, take his money and children, that meaningfully paying attention is an impossible task given the volume of cases. At the appellate level, straightforward cases based upon established bedrock law is dismissed as �frivolous.� Fathers are being incarcerated for failure to pay child support without the benefit of a jury trial. Judges ignore even the most basic and well-established law�such that civil confinement cannot occur unless there is a present ability to pay and the key is one�s hands.� While the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that there is a fundamental right to family life and family integrity, the courts refuse to apply this precedent to the father/child relationship, its most natural and obvious application.

Those that fought for us, did not fight for a nation wherein one�s child could be taken by a whim of the court, where the basic right to travel was denied due to owing a debt, where one lost their child in family courts of law merely because of their gender, where the financial demands of government are so onerous that survival itself is impossible, and wherein the right to speech, assembly and ballot access to fight for these rights is denied. They did not fight for a court system that denied Due Process of law.

�������������������� (Notice Lincoln in the Background)

A country that denies its citizen the basic rights to family integrity, the right to travel, equal treatment of the law, the right to earn a living and keep it so as to survive, Due Process, and the right to speech and petition and ballot access to correct these errors simply cannot be called a free country. No earthly country can provide godly perfection. But for fathers, we live in despotism with an occasional freedom, rather than freedom with an occasional despotism.� This is not what our veterans fought for.

* Attorney Del Gallo may be reached at 413-445-6789.� His website is BerkshireFatherhood.com.� For another essay on father’s� rights being�basic civil rights, read “The Father’s Rights Movement is a Civil Rights Movement” written by Attorney Del Gallo in 2002, an address that was delivered to then state representatives Shaun Kelley and Peter Larkin.

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