Posted on 04/10/2007 1:21:59 PM PDT by Quick or Dead
JEFFERSON CITY — David Salazar is what many would call a "duped dad."
Repeatedly, courts have ordered him to pay child support for a 5-year-old girl, even though no one — not a judge and not the child's mother — claims he's the father.
In the eyes of many, Salazar, of Buchanan County, is the victim of a law that traps men into the child support payments, even though they can prove they're not the dads.
-snip-
That kind of statement angers Sen. Chris Koster, who is sponsoring the Missouri bill.
Koster, R-Harrisonville, said he knew children would be harmed as men used DNA to break paternity. But he said the current law mocked justice by pretending that a man is a father even when the evidence proves otherwise.
His bill would allow men to bring forward DNA evidence at any time to prove they are not obligated to pay child support.
-snip-
Linda Elrod, director of the Children and Family Law Center at Washburn University, said she was saddened by cases where DNA evidence was used to challenge paternity. She said the cases not only cut off support payments but often ruptured a mature parental bond.
Others, such as Jacobs, want to set a two-year deadline for using genetic tests to challenge paternity. She said courts also needed the discretion to weigh the quality of a parental relationship and the best interest of a child.
But Koster said such arguments by law professors ignored the fundamental truth in many cases — that the man is not the father and should not be obligated to pretend he is.
"It would be just as arbitrary to hang the responsibility of supporting the child with those professors," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Fathers don't sign the birth certificate. The mother fills out the name of the father and that is that.
That's unusually cynical and I believe, wrong. What man, except an unusually suspicious Freeper who can't get dates anyway, would think this.
So strange.
You saw that old 'Twilight Zone' with Jack Klugman and Elizabeth Montgomery, too? WOW!!!
In some cases, there are probably men out there who would gladly stay in the life of that child, even knowing he wasn't his own biological child, but the mother has all the rights, he has none in that case.
No, still married with my mom! I speak to them all the time.
Know a girl or woman in college or real life who was abandoned?
No.
You don't have just a passing interest here. You obviously have a personal ax to grind.
Not personal at all, except I love kids.
What an asshat. You actually think a person(man or woman) who is not the biological parent should pay for the upbringing of a child that is not theirs? Where they hell were you raised? It couldn’t have been the USA because we believe in fairness here and there is nothing fair about your attitude. Again, what a jerk you are.
I agree that ideally they should leave their spouse before romancing someone else, but I know that reality is seldom ideal
"Ethics" by Rudy Giuliani
Better at 15 rather than 5. I explictly said there is no perfect solution to this - only bad options. We have to chose one, I'll stick it to the man before I stick it to the child, that's all.
You can think all you want that the kid will be happy, but he'll blame them both for lying to him all those years.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Enough of the “sluts’ cut!”
Let the judges pay if they want to stop the “child” from suffering. The child has it bad enough with a ho for a mom as it is!
Sticking it to either isn’t good, I admit. But sometimes we have to choose among only bad options.
As for me, I don’t care much about money. A woman can take 1/2 of what I own, but she can’t take away my ability to make more. I’m not unduly fearful of giving a woman her fair share of the marital property should our marriage dissolve.
I still keep 1/2, and get the rest of my life to make more money and find a better woman. In t hat respect, getting rid of a crappy spouse is a great deal.
So look on the bright side.
Exactly and further more, If the Woman has the right to an abortion, then she alone is the decision maker as to if the kid is born. With the Right comes the Responsibility. The Woman should have 100% of the responsibility and the man should have none. This is the game when Abortion is on the books. If a woman is impregnated against her will, she should file rape charges. It is all her choice, and with choice goes the responsibility.
Finding of facts for the court - if there is no worthwhile relationship to preserve, well there you go.
Given choice between siding with an adult male who is feeling sorry for himself, or a child who has cultivated a meaningful relationship with the male, I’ll side with the child.
That you wouldn’t I suppose speaks volumes for you.
Morality is recognizing the difference between right and wrong. The law enforces what a culture deems 'right' and punishes what a culture deems 'wrong.'
In that respect, the law enforces a cultural morality.
Now in some cases, legislating morality ends up being poorly conceived or counterproductive, and in that respect not encouraged. But in itself, the attempt to legislate morality as a blanket proposition isn't wrong or foolish, though sometimes it may be.
I know that sticking it to the man in this situation is unfair but given the choices, it's the best course of action. A self pitying male who wants to check out of a child's life needs a stern reminder that the behavior is not approved.
Yes I am an adult male, and yes, sometimes you just gotta take the hit! ;-)
I could side with a child that had a developed familiar relationship with a duped-non-biological father.
As noted above, in that situation, the biological mother should be automatically stripped of custody and the child given to the involuntarily-adoptive father to raise. The biological mother is clearly unfit, given her adulterous nature, but she can certainly pay child support.
Best of both worlds! Child saved! Loser “mother” pays.
You're pretty cavalier about using the power of the State to force an innocent man to lose sometimes up to a half-million dollars because some lying, unfaithful scumbag of a woman fingered him for something he didn't do, ya know that?
How would you like it if someone said you were guilty of a crime, but offered no evidence of your guilt, and the State went ahead and convicted you without even the possibility of a fair trial?
Me? I KNOW my boys are mine. They look like me, they sound like me, and they act like me. (Have pity on their mother, I know LOL. Vengeance is sweet...)
Still, that doesn't change the fact that I've paid for 2 of her cars and her house over the years. Often times living on generic Kroger-brand biscuits and freeze-dried rice to keep her off my back, too.
I'm just glad that my boys are grown now, and at long last, what's mine is mine.
Your comment is misplaced, since I didn’t limit the contribution to the child’s life in that way.
Oh, right, so a man who doesn't have any blood ties to a child should keep on paying extortion money to the mother. Lots of men who pay child support have no relaionsip with the child. You are an idiot and a fool and and assh*** if you think someone who is not related to a child should be the one to financially support them. These men should be compensated, the money paid out should be paid back to them and they should be off the hook. To think otherwise is the grossest type of socialist thinking. Go to Russia or Cuba, you will be more at home there. I repeat, what an asshat you are.
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