Send a letter to your representatives in Congress
supporting Elian's return to his father
Read the Denver Post Article on this case.
Below is the text of a sample letter that you can send to your local papers and
television stations.
First: Select the text below, and hit
"copy" (Ctrl C).
Second: Then go to the ANCPR
National Media Guide
Third: Enter your zip code, or click on your state
and select the papers and stations to whom you want to send the message.
Fourth: Paste (Ctrl V) the message into the message
box provided, enter your contact information and hit submit.
The Elian Gonzales case illustrates how our concept of the "best interest of the
child" is subject to abuse with untold harm to the child in question. In this case,
the "best interest" standard is being employed to keep Elian from his father.
This is a common occurrence in Family Courts all across out nation. As Al Knight in the
April 20 Denver Post describes the process:
"One parent or custodian obtains the primary access to a young child and works the
situation in such a way as to directly disadvantage another parent, usually the father.
The manipulation can be subtle ( "Don't you think you have a nicer room here?"
or more directly ( "I wish your father cared about you enough to get a nicer place
for you to stay.'') Whether subtle or direct, however, the technique has a name. It's
called parental alienation, the art of putting distance between a non-custodial parent and
a child.
This act, which in a saner society would be classed as a crime, in fact is often
rewarded in custody cases when the person who has done the alienating is given preference
in parenting time precisely because judges find such arrangements to be "in the best
interests of the child."
Every state has passed statutes largely influenced by federal mandates embedded in
various welfare reform packages and other legislation that define the best interest of the
child, along with many other aspects of Family Law, most notably child support
enforcement. This problem must therefore be addressed on a federal level.
I call upon your readers to write to their elected representatives demanding that they
sponsor legislation that would direct the states to re-define the best interest standard
to state specifically that in divorce where neither parent has been found by jury trial to
be unfit, then the presumption would be for shared parenting in which both parents would
share equal time with the children of the relationship. For how such a bill would be
worded, please see either http://ancpr.org/resolution.htm
or http://www.kids-right.org/family_rights_act.htm.
Readers can easily use the Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents
Rights (ANCPR) Legislative Action Center to send a message to their representatives.
The URL for the Legislative Action Center is: http://ancpr.org/lac/new_page_2.htm
Sincerely,
