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I did not intend to get involved in the politics of the Father's Rights movement and was happy at the start just telling my story to anyone that would listen.

 

That was until I stumbled on a story from Columbus about a father that had tried to get the Ohio Supreme Court to do something about making sure that all parents with shared parenting got a proper deviation in their child support to reflect the true cost to them of raising their children.  It was not so much the story as the title that struck me along with a comment made by Justice Paul Pfeiffer of the Ohio Supreme Court. During the course of testimony, Justice Pfeiffer made a comment that shared parenting was nothing more than "cocktail conversation". And that fathers only showed up to take care of their children when they did not have a golf game. This struck me as odd and hit a nerve for me as I was a golfer that had never put my golf game over my son.

 

I wrote the man that whose case this was and asked if I could out a link to the case on my website. That permission was granted and subsequent conversations lead to my forming a chapter of Parents And Children for Equality in Akron. Working to get a chapter up and going was a struggle but a challenge that I liked. I was glad that I had others that shared my views on this problem and together we were able to get this new chapter going. I was introduced to a man that helped get a separate website going for the Akron Chapter and have since taken that site over and serve as webmaster to this day.

 

The letter that I wrote to Justice Pfeiffer and sent to the rest of the Ohio Supreme Court started that ball rolling for me. I started to write to the local representatives of the US Congress, Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich   and the House of Representatives in Columbus. If any of them responded I wrote back and kept pressing forward to try to get the laws changed so that every parent had an opportunity to enjoy the same rights I had as a parent.

 

During my activities with PACE I have worked on many projects including helping to write a equal custody bill that was introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives. This bill died in Committee as the Judges and lawyers refused to meet with us to discuss changes that they wanted made to the bill. My guess is that they didn't like our offer of "any time, any place". They may not have understood the simplicity of that offer just as they can't understand equal rights for all fit parents.

 

I have also helped to organize two different rallies that were held on the steps of the Statehouse in Columbus. The first was when we learned that Mike Galluzzo had been granted a certified question as to the Constitutionality of Ohio's Custody law. The second was also held and brought about the introduction of Fathers4Justice in America. This was major effort as it involved the first time that several groups had joined together to protest in a co-operative effort. The sprit behind this is what will make the effort for equal custody work and needs to happen daily, not just on one occasion.

 

Still I pressed on and wrote the next time to every member of the both sides of the Ohio legislature and again presented a custody bill to them that was not only beneficial to all fit parents but was also constitutionally compliant. I did another website to make this information available to the general public that I have since shut down and added the same info to this site and the PACE site.

 

Please take the time to read all the information and look at all the links I have provided here. After you do, write letters and make phone calls to your representatives at the Statehouse press for changes to protect American families after divorce. Tell them that divorce does not make one unfit and that it is time to change the law to protect all fit parents.

 

 

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Recently I was asked to respond to a question or statement that was posed about whether or not the Father's Rights movement was effective in what they were doing and their approach.  My answer is below and while it may shock some, it is the truth.

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Is the Father's rights movement currently effective in creating change? That question can be answered simply by saying no. BUT it is fixable.

 

Why? That answer is simple also. A lack of co-operation and an inability of the various groups to put their individual egos aside and work for the common good.

 

The misguided perception is that this is a father's rights movement and by calling it that the general public will never accept what is really going on here. This has to be called a parental rights movement. If we continue to fail to include every fit parent that has been denied their Constitutional Right to equality and due process by the courts, this movement will collapse on itself. By presenting the issues in this manner to the general public a deeper understanding and farther reaching sympathy will be gained. Many organizations have recognized this problem and have reflected that by changing their names or the public policy to include all fit parents.

 

The public in general is not educated in the problems of the current domestic or family court system that exists in this nation and the problems that this system is causing this and future generations. It is not until one becomes caught in the trap of family court that one realizes the problems that exist. If one tells the average person on the street that there is a problem with the way that things are with the court system and the way that it treats fit parents as they choose to end a marriage, they will say that the courts are fair. They accept that fact that fathers are regularly taken out the lives of their children and reduced to a 20% or less roll because that is the way it has always been done. Tell some one that a mother has been placed in the same position and the perception is that she is unfit while that may be the farthest thing from the truth.

 

Until the general public is educated properly about the way that things are done, nothing will change.

 

That change must first start by educating parents when they are young and their children are young or before they even consider having children of the problems that they could come to them should they decide to end their marriage or relationship. We have failed to do this so far. As a very active advocate in this area, by the time a parent comes to me for advice, their life has been thrown into turmoil and the relationship that they once had with their children has already been disrupted, often to a point where they will never recover from this disruption. If the message is spread prior to the interference of the State into their lives unjustly they could often avoid the headaches that follow.

 

I was told when I was going thru my divorce that I would never have custody of my son because I was a male and they don't award custody to fathers in my county. I found this unacceptable because I had been the primary parent in my son's life and because of my beliefs in the Constitutional right to equality that I had been taught as I grew. Frankly I dug my heels in hard when my attorney said this and told him flat out that this was unacceptable to me. Poor guy thought he had someone that would accept the norm and move on. Instead he got a fighter who knew that things were going to change and would not accept less than an equal role in my son's life, in divorce as it had been in marriage. It was the end of a marriage NOT the end of my role as a parent. I got and held onto a 50/50 custody situation for 10 years despite the fact that I was challenged four different times by my ex-wife.

 

That heel dig is what has made me what I am today and what has made my son what he is today.

 

To educate the public properly we must take a consistent and unified message to them that this issue is about the Constitutional rights of all fit parents to equal legal and physical custody of their children. The use of the term "shared parenting" must end and end now.  Shared parenting is nothing and does not properly reflect what must happen to protect the rights given to us by this Nation's Founding Fathers. Shared parenting is and will remain a poor term for in reality it means nothing.

 

That education can not stop with an education of the public but must be continued to the legislators of every state. Forget hammering on the federal legislators are they will take, as they have taken in the past, that this is a state issue. The only true federal issue here is the protection of our United States Constitutional rights. If our state legislators are educated properly on how the current state laws effect the destruction of family and personal rights then, and only then, will effective changes be made to the laws that directly affect the equal rights of fit parents.

 

That education must start before the person is elected as a representative in state government.

 

This takes time and constant gentle talking. It took over three years for us to be able to put together an equal parenting bill in Ohio. I was lucky enough to be able to work on that legislation and even though that bill did not make it into law, it did raise the issue and help to set the ground work for a reintroduction in the future The information that we gained from the experience is available on line and sets a template for what other groups should be doing to try this in other states. Why continue to try to reinvent the wheel as seems to be the norm with many groups.

 

That reinvention of the wheel comes from the fact that many groups and their leadership refuse to put aside their individual egos to work for the greater good in favor of putting their personal agendas forward. There can be only one agenda and that is the protection of the Constitutional Rights of every fit parent. No Mother's rights, No father's rights, no children's rights, only the right of every fit parent to equal legal and physical custody of their children, be they married, separated, divorced or never married.

 

This ego trip is an admitted stumbling block that many "leaders" have admitted is the largest problem that exists to moving forward to solving the problems at hand. If we fail to pay attention to the successes and failures of what others have done, we will continue to fall well short of the goal. I have advocated the joining of groups under a single banner or at the very least working together by sharing information and discussing where they are having problems so that if someone has been there, we do not have to slip backward, instead use that experience to move forward. Many times I have been able to get the various groups within Ohio to work together while not stepping on each group's personal agenda. When this has happened we have taken large steps forward because we have used each other's strengths to their maximum ability rather than putting a group in a position where they are out of their element.

 

I am a Director of a local chapter of Parents And Children for Equality (PACE) and a board member with them. I am also a Vice President with the Nation Organization for Parental Equality (NOPE). These two positions do not conflict with each other, they complement each other. PACE is Ohio based and leadership and membership has a strong legal and legislative lobbying ability. It was thru the efforts of the membership that we worked on and took Galluzzo vs. Champaign all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

 

Membership efforts are also what got the equal custody legislation introduced.

 

NOPE is an effort that Mike Galluzzo, Chuck Evans and I have started and are forming as a blanket organization for every group nationally to come together and share resources. Our intent is to not interfere with any groups individual agenda or ego. The intent is to give a single place where groups can come together and discuss and learn from our experience with legislators and the courts. The purpose is to gain strength thru numbers much in the way that NOW was able to push woman's issues forward and King was able to push the Civil Rights issues forward in the 60's.

 

Others have claimed to be doing this but fail because they push their own thoughts on the groups and put forth a "my way or the highway" attitude that has brought about failure with their projects. Failure brought on by not listening to the experiences of others. One such group that comes to mind here was one that pushed for a series of "class Actions" suits in every state. That group (http://unitedcivilrights.org/) led by a Torm Howse claims to be a pro-parental rights advocate and one that is joining many under their banner. In reality this guy has done more to destroy unity among those groups than any other person to there. If you are an advocate, he will add you as a "leader" within his group whether you requested it or not. Try to do something he does not approve of and he will block your efforts behind your back and spread lies about you.

 

NOW he is attacking other advocates because they will not fall in line with his way of thinking and his flawed methods. He recently posted a message to the internet which makes false claims about advocates that have been more active than him for more years.

 

When he purposed the original class action suits Nationwide, we examined the complaint that was purposed by this group and told them that this was a doomed effort because the wording and legal approach would not work based on our past experience and what we were finding out with the Galluzzo case at that time. The end result was a mass dismissal of all of the cases that they brought forth and financial losses that were unnecessarily placed on the people that this wannabe leader had duped them into. This same wannabe is now saying that he wants to do this on a county by county level in each state. Without a viable and proper complaint that effort will fail also and waste more time and money unnecessarily.

 

It does not take many court cases for this parental rights movement to gain ground. It only takes one GOOD one. Galluzzo was a good one that has a very strong legal argument behind it. Unfortunately the willingness of the courts to address the issue, while they appeared true and just at first, turned as they saw to implications of a positive result. Backdoor lobbying is a potential pitfall to even the best suit. This is a fight against the largest industry in this country.

 

That has not stopped our efforts though as we now have taken what we learned from Galluzzo and currently we have two suits active in Ohio that are asking for Declaratory Judgments that Ohio's custody law is unconstitutional. One suit was filed in state court and the other was filed in federal court. Both include what we learned in past efforts and both brought that forth to attack the issue again.

 

People remember the suits that win and set precedence, they do not remember the efforts that did not succeed. Brown V Board of Education was a precedence setting case and everyone remembers that but what many do not know it that it was the eight or ninth try to get that issue heard by the US Supreme Court , but what was learned by the failures was put to use to make to final effort a success. The same held true for Roe V Wade.  Rosa Parks was not the first to try to be arrested for sitting at the front of the bus. Research helped all those efforts and they all were the result of learning from history, not repeating it.

 

If we continue we will succeed in court but it will take a judge with the right frame of mind that decides that they want to hear this on the Merits not on the lobbying efforts that all too often happen in court cases. I maintain that the Federal Court System is the proper place for this and likely to be the best venue because the federal judges are appointed not elected. Appointments put distance between the judge and the influence of money and what it can buy when election time comes about.

 

If we are to succeed, we must:

  1. Put the egos aside and work as one with a strong message not many small voices, One LARGE voice.
  2. Learn from the past
  3. Educate both the general public and the law makers
  4. Change the thinking of people that are still saying shared parenting, the proper thing to work for is equal legal and physical custody.
  5. Share info so the wheel is not reinvented.
  6. Include men and women equally in this effort
  7. Educate our children so they do not make the mistakes of the past
  8. Stop the strong voices that have "aged out" from leaving the movement.

 

Is the current movement broken? DEFINITELY.

Is it fixable so that we can achieve our goal? Definitely.

 

 Ray R. Lautenschlager

Cell: 330-907-0664

Akron@pacegroup.org

 

 

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