Here is a selection of cites from various federal and state cases on the fundmanental nature of parenting rights in the United States. We hope that after you read these you will understand the purpose of our quest in the protection of both children and parents!
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The rights of parents to the care, custody and nurture of their children is of such character that it cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions, and such right is a fundamental right protected by this amendment (first) and Amendments 5, 9, and 14. Doe v. Irwin 441 F Supp 1247; U.S. D.C. of Michigan, (1985)
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Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain vital interest in preventing irretrievable destruction of their family life; if anything, persons faced with forced dissolution of their parental rights have more critical need for procedural protections than do those resisting state intervention into ongoing family affairs. Santosky v. Kramer, 102 S Ct 1388; 455 US 745, (1982)
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Parent's right to custody of child is a right encompassed within protection of this amendment (first) which may not be interfered with under guise of protecting public interest by legislative action which is arbitrary or without reasonable relation to some purpose within competency of state to effect. Reynold v. Baby Fold, Inc,, 369 NE 2d 858; 68 Ill 2d 419, appeal dismissed 98 S Ct 1598, US 963, Il, (1977)
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Parent's interest in custody of her children is a liberty interest which has received considerable constitutional protection; a parent who is deprived of custody of his or her child, even though temporarily, suffers thereby grievous loss and such loss deserves extensive due process protection. In the Interest of Cooper,621 P 2d 437; 5 Kansas App Div 2d 584, (1980).
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The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that severance in the parent-child relationship caused by the state occur only with rigorous protections for individual liberty interests at stake. Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F 2d 1205; US Ct App 7th Cir WI, (1984).
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The U.S. Supreme Court implied that "a (once) married father who is separated or divorced from a mother and is no longer living with his child" could not constitutionally be treated differently from a currently married father living with his child. Quilloin v. Walcott, 98 S Ct 549; 434 US 246, 255-56, (1978).
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A parent's right to the preservation of this relationship with his child derives from the fact that the parent's achievement of a rich and rewarding life is likely to depend significantly on his ability to participate in the rearing of his children. A child's corresponding right to protection from interference in the relationship derives from the psychic importance to him of being raised by loving, responsible, reliable adult. Franz v. U.S., 707 F 2d 582, 595-599; US Ct App (1983).
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The United States Supreme Court held that the "old notion" that "generally it is the man's primary responsibility to provide a home and its essentials" can no longer justify a statute that discriminates on the bases of gender. No longer is the female destined solely for the home and the rearing of the family, and only the male for the marketplace and the world of ideas. Stanton v. Stanton, 421 US 7, 10; 95 LS Ct 1373, 1376, (1975).
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Law and Court procedures that are "fair on their faces" but administered "with an evil eye or a heavy hand" was discriminatory and violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 US 356, (1886).
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There appears to be a wide gap between legislative intent and judicial application for the Virginia Code 20-107.2 as amended states the following: In awarding the custody of the child or children, the court may give consideration to joint custody or to sole custody, but shall give primary consideration to the welfare of the child or children, and, as between the parents, there shall be no presumption or inference of law in favor of either.
The State Bar Association, Family Law Section, addresses the bias in the courts by saying it was just a coincidence. When we have judges openly saying on record that "I don't award custody to fathers, children need to be with there mothers" and "I believe that children under the age of twelve need to be with their mothers and after twelve boys need to be with their fathers and girls need to be with their mothers" is not simply coincidence. Our children statewide are being raped by the court system of their parents, their birthrights, their heritage, and their civil rights.
State's power to legislate, adjudicate and administer all aspects of family law, including determinations of custodial; and visitation rights, is subject to scrutiny by federal judiciary within reach of due process and/or equal protection clauses of 14th Amendment...Fourteenth Amendment applied to states through specific rights contained in the first eight amendments of the Constitution which declares fundamental personal rights...Fourteenth Amendment encompasses and applied to states those pre-existing fundamental rights recognized by the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment acknowledged the prior existence of fundamental rights which it: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. "The United States Constitution Amendment IX in a long line of decisions, the supreme Court has recognized that matters involving marriage, procreation, and the parent-child relationship are among those fundamental "liberty" interests protected by the Constitution. Thus, that decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113; 93 S Ct 705; 35 L Ed 2d 147, (1973), was recently described by the Supreme Court as founded on the "Constitutional undermining of ...a recognition that the "liberty" Protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment includes not only the freedoms explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but also a freedom of personal choice in certain matters of marriage and family life. "The non-custodial divorced parent has no way to implement the constitutionally protected right to maintain a parental relationship with his child except through visitation. To acknowledge the protected status of the relationship as the majority does, and yet deny protection under Title 42 USC 1983, to visitation, which is the exclusive means of effecting that right, is to negate the right completely. Wise v. Bravo, 666 F 2d 1328, (1981).
Defendant Judge Harris has deprived the Plaintiff Steinberg from parental rights without due process or equal protection of the law and ignoring the paramount issue of what is in the child's best interest. Judge Harris by calculated, deliberate, intent has reduced the Plaintiff father to the role of a second class parent without rights of a parent, but with obligations of an indentured servant. In less than three years the Defendants have taken the father from a caring, nurturing, loving, full time parent and made him a visitor in the child's life and say that this visitation now is a "privilege".
As presently stated in the Virginia Code 20-61, "A father has the right at common law to maintain his children in his own home, and he cannot be compelled against his will to do so elsewhere, unless he has refused or failed to provide for them where he lives, and the statutes providing for the punishment of a father (now spouse) for the failure to support his children, were not intended to change the common law, with respect to the duty of a father to maintain and support his infant children, but merely to more effectually enforce the legal duty." Butler v. Commonwealth, 132 Va. 609, 110 S.E. 868 (1922).
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The right of a parent not to be deprived of parental rights without a showing of fitness, abandonment or substantial neglect is so fundamental and basic as to rank among the rights contained in this Amendment (Ninth) and Utah's Constitution, Article 1 \ 1. In re U.P., 648 P 2d 1364; Utah, (1982).
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