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 ...
If you don't then you're simply a hypocrite (and worse).
I agree, and I would like to see the law changed in the direction I described.
Nope. I have no personal relationship with the child that's worth preserving. And in any event, my tax money goes to help support children all over the country. So does yours.
My not supporting a random kid doesn't make my a hypocrite. This is the kind of stunted thinking that I see often on FR lately. What would make me a hypocrite would be if I were in the type of situation I describe and deny my role as the father figure to any children I may have had that weren't mine. That would make me a hypocrite.
Not indulging in your deficient hypothetical doesn't make me a hypocrite. Look up what the word means.
Might even make a few loose “wives” rethink their morals.
Yes, I agree....
But my chlidren admire your posts and look up to you as a father-figure!!! Now gimme.
Unfortunately, the situation I described involves a mutual relationship, not a one sided one. Sorry, you lose. Thanks for trying, though!
Well it is possible that a state does not defacto view a child born during a marriage as the husband’s child. I can’t fathom a state not having such a law, and if it has changed from that standard, I’d say its something that’s happened in the last 20-30 years.
I’ve been out of law school nearly 20 years, but in my domestic law class I seem to recall that some states had an irrebuttable presumption of paternity in the spouse, and others had a rebuttable presumption. This was in the days before the kinds of DNA analysis that exists today.
I have never cared for most legal fictions, and one like this, that the husband is always the father, is particularly troubling because it intrudes on very important family relationships and duties. In these cases truth should be paramount. Might it harm a child to find out that the husband of his mother is not his father? Perhaps, but tragic occurrences happen often, without legal remedy. Husbands should not be made to suffer twice (actually continually for 18 years or more) due to the infidelity of their wives.
If “the best interests of the child” is the deciding factor, then the courts should consider interviewing a number of men, perhaps summoned as potential jurors are, and determine who is most able to provide support for a child whose biological father cannot be determined, or whose mother refuses to disclose his identity.
In case anyone missed my previous posts on this thread, in situations where a husband has, knowingly or not, voluntarily assumed the role of father of the child, having had an opportunity to challenge paternity, that man should be compelled to continue the support he has begun. But where a man questions his paternity from early on (how early to be determined) he should have the right to a fair determination before having to assume a lifelong obligation.
Gimme.
(Now I just gotta go out and have some kids really fast, and I'll be rich!!!)
Well, if I won’t support them, I’m confident our welfare system will! :-)
Well obviously if you challenge paternity from day one, that’s a completely different event than being the father for years, then during a divorce or other proceeding years later decide to test/challenge paternity.
After the relationship has developed, there is no doubt severing such responsibilities and relationships is harmful to a child. Every study ever published shows direct correllations between fatherlessness and higher risks of all sorts of problems for children.
Let alone adding to it willful abandonment as the cause for the fatherless state.
You may be correct, I am not a lawyer and do not know family law in all 50 states, and yes the law as all sorts of fictions built in, however part of marriage is parentage, and for the law not to presume the couple are not the parents of children born in wedlock IMHO would create abject chaos.. good for lawyers pocketbooks, bad for society in general. (I’ve always found that direct correllation to be most curious.)
DNA testing has produced new wrinkles in time and societally held issues. Pre DNA, provided you weren’t married any guy could deny paternity to a child he fathered with a woman he was not married too... and alas far far far too many of the male gender did indeed do just that. Now thanks to DNA this guy cannot get away with it.. on the flip side, some fathers are going to find out they aren’t biologically the parents of their percieved offspring.
The reality is, good or ill, we are all humans, and as such, cheating will happen, and will happen by both genders. No, its not right, but if everyone did everything right all the time, we’d not need to worry about so many things that are part of our daily world.
Now, does being able to prove via DNA make you absolved of parental responsibility once a bond has obviously been formed? I cannot in anyway conclude that it does. Many a husband has raised children that they knew were not theirs, before science could give them proof, the overriding bond of marriage does indeed tie one to responsibility to paternity (some states may not have this, but in the general world, this is the presiding principle).
Marriage is not a hook up... its a commitment, its more than a piece of paper and a blood test. I don’t think the law would do anyone favor to say once the bond is formed between child and father, that evidence of paternity to the contrary allows the man to walk is in the best intrest of the child. There is just no way you can get there.
Is it fair? Nope. But like MY FATHER taught me a long time ago..
Suck it up son, you are a man. Life isn’t fair, never was, never will be. You do what’s right becaue its RIGHT, not because its fair, not because its what you want, and not because it makes you feel good. Most times it will make you feel good, and most times it will be fair... other times it’ll feel like someone punched you in the gut and kicked you when you are down. Wheter it makes you feel good, or feel like crap doesn’t matter, you still do what’s Right. That’s what it means to be a Man and not a child.
Alas there are far too many children running around this world today.
Tell that to the state of TX. I know a man right now that pays child support on 2 children that he did not biologically father, nor legally adopt. He was -- however -- the only father figure the children had known for 11 years. He hasn't appealed the ruling, though. He thinks of them as his children.
"Current laws would require the courts to track down the bio-father. The step-dad would not be allowed any visitation rights nor would he be ordered to pay child support."
Bio father is on the childrens birth certificate, but he bailed long ago. Mom never tried to collect child support. As she did not collect welfare benefits, the state didn't care one way or the other.
When they divorced, the mothers lawyer requested child support under an "implied paternity". Wording may be off. Step father agreed, and has quite liberal visitation.
It just may be something to think about when a man gets into a relationship where an absentee dad exists.
This is a no-win situation for the man, and a no-lose situation for the woman. It's been created by the woman and, IMO, is fraud. If she's slept with more than one person, she can't know the ID of the father. That's fraud in the operational sense, whether or not in the legal sense.
She is evil (there's a value judgment for you!) She is by definition (IMO) unfit as a parent.
There's only one way to deal with those situations, by coming down hard on those who create them. It's not by compounding the injury to the victim.
Those who believe that the needs of a child create a claim...should assume responsibility for it.
Oh my. They shouldn't have done that. At least they let him continue to be in the children's lives. Far to often the states only enforce the 'money' part of the obligation and not the 'emotional connection'.
In Louisiana, they just removed Judge Wendell Miller from the bench. He had an affair with his married secretary and got her pregnant. When she divorced her husband, he signed off on the consent divorce decree and made her husband pay child support or a child that was probably his.
The affair continued for five more years. The judge continued to refuse to leave his wife. Eventually the lady stopped the affair. The judge did not take the termination well. She sued him in Federal court for harassment. She won a $50,000 judgment {per the Supreme Court ruling, the State records indicate $215,000 or so was spent on the case}.
Three years later, the State got around to disciplining the judge. They just removed him from the bench. The Supreme Court also dismissed the judges claim to establish paternity {filed nine years after the fact}.
The husband and wife had remarried and were presenting a united front against the judge.
Actually, no...the overriding theme of this thread is that circumstances are irrelevant to the need of any given man to be "responsible." It's one thing to assert a moral imperative (which which I disagree) but it's something fully different to assert a legal obligation is just. It exists, but it's not right or just. That is the charge of a legal system...not to do what is "right," but to do that which is just.
One person's need cannot create a moral claim on another. Any moral ( just) claim on my life, any consequences I rightfully bear, are the result of my actions. That is why I fully support enforcement of child support for any childen I actually fathered.
That is why I reject this bastardized definition of manhood, a requirement that any man should be a chump, that the actions of others are irrelevant to the question of his obligations. This mentality is at the root of our family and cultural breakdown.
If one wanted to destroy the family, one couldn't design a better system to do so. That's why I reject your little equation..."either the child or an adult will take the hit..." Using that logic, as one poster noted, it's in every child's interests to be declared the child of Donald Trump.
Asking that all of society assume the burden of support is just in these cases.
No, I'm not a lawyer...I've just been on the receiving end of the family court system for the last 15 years.
I understand there's a cost to not saddling non-biological parents with a financial obligation. I've heard no discussion, however, of the costs of doing so. That's what's missing.
I don't know if anyone has made THIS observation yet regarding your contention that the legal system should hold the "pseudo-dad" responsible BUT, while the legal system COULD make such an assertion, and even though you said several times that the adult should "take the hit" and NOT the child, there is absolutely NOTHING the legal system can do to force a man to behave in a loving way toward a child that he resents.
I don't agree...
Which is totally illogical...some gal has, by definition, unleashed the legal system on a guy by declaring paternity. If she's slept with no one but the person named, we'd all agree there's a powerful argument he is indeed the father. If she's slept with someone else, then there is some question, by definition. For her to name either person (assuming two candidates) as the winner, she's asserting as a fact something she has no way of knowing. She may be right, but that's not the question.
This is done for some perceived advantage to herself. That is the definition of fraud, and she should be held legally liable for misleading a court.
Of course, we know how often that happens, right? There's a simple test to determine whether a responsibility is just...does it come along with a benefit? Is fatherhood something I can invoke as a neutral principle? Is it something that can benefit me, or something which can only be used against me?
Nope..."the best interests of the child," is a justification for limiting my rights, never one I can invoke. The entire system is fraud.
When a state will enforce court ordered visitation, then the phrase "the best interests of the child," will have some validity. Until then, it's just another example of disingenuous double talk, and I recognize it as such.
I'm not questioning your sincerity, but your judgment. Four rules for living I've come to recognize as invaluable...
1) Trying to reason with crazy people will make you insane.
2) Trying to live with a crazy person will make you insane.
3) Never try to discuss your personal responsibilities with someone who wishes to cynically remove context and perspective from the discussion...IE, selective application of principles.
4) When you find yourself agreeing with those whom you despise, it's time to rethink your position.
Sorry I don’t think you can prove that “folks posting here are at least incidentally harming a child” because they don’t support a program where the fatherless pay for other’s children.
Although that seems to be the consensus, you keep arguing to convince others the state should impose the opposite. I think you are speaking to the wrong audience. This is not a socialist website.
Well thanks Carolyn for pointing out another episode of DNA justice at work.
But I’m not sure the Hitman will accept such an outcome. He will insist that the fatherless must pay for the responsibility of the fathers regardless.
Socialist reality at work.
My friend told his ex-wife that he would be paying child support later in the month and she complained vehemently. She said that money was needed sooner as it paid the mortgage.
On top of that, after she pushed for the divorce, she didn’t even want to wait the required year. My friend not knowing why soon found out. She remarried their Mexican landscapper just months after he agreed to sign the papers.
And I don’t even want to mention how she kept the house throwing him a few dollars to move on. He didn’t argue the point so the two kids had a home. He got it every which way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.