didn't you know you can't right the wrongs of the past unless you punish the future?

It seems a "reasonable investigation" would include a DNA test, but that's just me.

Why outrage? Do people still assume that the justice system works in the United States? They do? Awkward!

I worked for the legal division for a child services arm of a state government agency, and just about all of the people who worked there were feminists, including the men, too.

Screw the feminists. You can point out all the double-standards that you want to. It won't change thier minds, and it won't change thier ways.

Feminists don't have the balls to stand up for justice and equality.

Rollye James has tackled this issue on her radio show a number of times:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollye_James

Too bad that absolutely nobody seems to listen. :-/

I never understand this. To me it's as basic as a receipt and should be first on the list of things to do to prove that some guy is the father of your child. What, did I just say that you needed to prove that a certain male is in fact the genetic maker of your offspring? You'd better, there's no other reason to drain his money. If you can't figure out who the right man is, I guess you should have kept a better calendar.

Blacstone's Formulation, circa 1760:

"[B]etter that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

I mean, duh, right?

Here's a plan:

Woman sues man for child support.
Man disputes parentage of woman's baby.
Man is administered DNA test.
If man turns out to be daddy, he pays for the DNA test and pays child support.
If man turns out not to be daddy, woman pays for the DNA test, and man doesn't have to pay woman a cent ever because it's NOT HIS BABY.

I mean, I'm a feminist, but this is just common sense here. Wrecking a man's finances and life like in the article above is outrageous.

Amy, how about the state give custody of the child to someone who wants to adopt when a woman falsely declares a man to be the father? With a mother like that and no father in the picture, the child would be better off, and the mother has pretty much shown that they can't be trusted to teach the child how to be a civilized human.

Call me crazy, but don't we have ELECTED officials so that we can get SENSIBLE laws?

This would be the easiest thing in the world to fix if the voters actually gave a shit.

Question:

Having taken the time to write your comments, how many of you followed up with a letter...phone call...or e-mail to your state legislature regarding these insane proceedings?

I'm going to guess on the high end...1.

-------------------------------------------------

That is why these injustices are allowed to continue. There should be protesters outside that judges home.

There should be people standing on the courthouse steps.

There should be letter campaigns and ANGRY tax payers, because guess who gets stiffed here?

Its not just the guy who gets ruined by this injustice, its all of your taxes that pay the salaries of these UNjust, judges. He's not collecting a private salary from a public company, he's getting taxpayer dollars directly from the public purse.

As much as I delight in blog commentary, it does not get seen by the people who can actually change things, and THAT is what needs to happen.

When you are silent about these offenses, you pardon them. And when you pardon one offense you encourage many more.

By doing nothing, you've pardoned the judge who said it was ok that this man was defrauded of 12,000 dollars, that he went to jail, that all that crap happened to him.

There should be people protesting outside the home of that utter BITCH that collected from the wrong man for so many years.

But...none of those things will happen.

And none of those things will happen...because it is A LOT easier, to complain about how the system doesn't work...than to do something to fix it.

Gods I cannae wait till I retire so I can get into politics.

Robert-

Protesting outside a judge's home will most likely result in getting yourself arrested for trespassing, at the bare minimum. They tend to get a little defensive when work follows them home.

Protesting outside this tramp's home will most likely result in getting yourself sued for whatever an ambitious and hungry attorney can come up with. Emotional distress, harassment, slander, pain and suffering for her public humiliation? She's found her meal ticket before in the unfortunate Mr. Sharpe, I wouldn't want to be her next one.

Don't get me wrong; I like your line of thinking, but it seems our new motto as a country is "Don't Judge Me!" Shame no longer works as a social pressure. To be deemed judgmental is considered worse than any infraction under the original scrutiny.

p.s. if you can throw in any more "burr" it'd make a girl's day.... ~sigh~ ;)

Where are the feminists, thou dost ask, Amy? In my country they're condemning the men who fought in past wars for their freedom: http://pelalusa.blogspot.com/2008/11/twisted-mental-juxtapositions-of.html

Can someone please wake me up when this world starts making sense again?!?

Despicable as it is, you may have a point Juliana. (except for the part about protesting at the judges home, as long as you stay on public property)

But the path to justice is not paved with flowers and smooth flow stone with places to pause and take our ease. It is no crystal stair, to borrow a line from...I want to say Maya Angelou.

Instead it is paved glass and nails, and those who struggle often pay a heavy price before the win. Many who do not simply call for justice, but demand it and take action to see that it is done, are rewarded for their pains with scorn, ridicule, and the abuse of vile persons.

There is a price to be paid for justice, and when we as citizens say the price is to high because it is inconvenient or unpleasant, we get exactly the justice that we deserve.

NONE.

"Where are the feminists, thou dost ask, Amy? In my country they're condemning the men who fought in past wars for their freedom:" The same shit happens here in the states. Some even nastier shit too.

As far as writing your senator sure we could and should. You want the law changed do the same shit the prop 8 people did in California. Get the law on the ballot. This one is pretty simple. Proposition X: DNA paternity trumps "reasonable investigation", or DNA in mandatory to define "reasonable investigation". Then spin the shit out of it, just like gay marriage. Show some poor kid (use actors) that will never know who her real dad is. Show some kid dieing in a hospital (again use actors) from a curable/treatable genetic disease that could have been predicted and ameliorated had we known who the real dad was (happens on medical dramas all the time). The the final master piece show some poor mother struggling to pay for her kids while their rich father enjoys the good life since the system has chosen some drunk slob in their "reasonable investigation".

Protesting in front of the judges house makes you a crack pot. The judge just has to argue that he/she is doing their job as per the law. Which in this case he was doing just that. The law grants men no compensation in system initiated paternity fraud thus the judge doesn't grant it. Had he granted it the women would have cried poverty and it would have been reversed on appeal. A mother with a 7 year old sun trumps logic. Should it? No but if juries were logical OJ would be sitting in jail and so would Winkler. The problem is as much us as it is "the system". Which by the way is us to, politicians and DSS workers are still biologically human. The fact that DSS workers hate men is usually a give as most of them are on a crusade against their father, brother, uncle etc. Change the law, don't blame those who follow it, it's pointless.

"I mean, I'm a feminist, but this is just common sense here."

Katie, what would a real feminist have against DNA tesing? It's simple matter of equality and justice. Thre's a difference between being a feminsts and a female chauvinst. You clearly know the difference and are on the right side of it.

Juliana and Vlad are right about protesting in front of people's homes.

Vlad has the right approach., a campiagn to change attitudes. Here's how to focus it: look at the commenters here. Aim the campaign at women, who are very clear on the justice and injustice of this issue. It's women who can answer and denounce the women who commit these crimes. The men just roll over as soon as someone slings a couple of shaming tactics.

Jim-

I'd love to take these women on, mano a mano, pardon the double entendre/ terrible pun combo. However....one look at my CV and I'd lose all credibility with the offender. Christian Middle Class Happily Married White Woman will be met with a deaf ear by a vindictive and desperate single mother. It doesn't translate. Even if I did bring credibility to the confrontation, she'd ignore that which would translate; my upbringing by an also vindictive and desperate single mother who was too proud to take food stamps and preferred to let us go hungry.

Just like a stroke patient who has lost their inhibitory center of their brain, there's a segment of our culture that has lost their inhibition for such reprehensible behavior. These women don't learn this crap in a vacuum and they're certainly too stupid to come up with it themselves; they hear it from their mamas, their girlfriends, their caseworkers, all the tricks to milk the system and any poor bastard who came up in their crosshairs.

Part of the problem is that the state gets %60 matching funds from the federal government for all money collected. So the state has no reason to be fair. All they care about is the money.

William said - With a mother like that and no father in the picture

The father is in the picture. The child was living with him. That is the screwiest part of all of this.

Sadly, if you are a man (and especially a white man) in todays society, legally, no one is looking out for you. You are the enemy.

Personally, I think every child born should be DNA matched to its father. Make it part of the birth process and problem solved. Of course, this would ruin things for those dishonest women who KNOW the baby they are carrying does not belong to their husbands, but who's to say that's a bad thing?

Make it part of the birth process and problem solved.

There are several points on that:

1. Married couples who just wanted a sperm donor (either from clinic or natural).


2. Gay couple putting the spouse on the cert.


3. Guy stepping up to the plate.

There are others I can think of.

But I can agree with they need the man's permission to put his name on the birth certificate.

The other is that part of the application for welfare/child support/etc. they take a DNA swab and have it on record.

So put four names on the birth certificate - the bio parents and the legal parents

If they are the same put their names down twice

@ Robert...

Having taken the time to write your comments, how many of you followed up with a letter...phone call...or e-mail to your state legislature regarding these insane proceedings?

I spent an hour just today discussing reproductive rights for men with staff of my state MP. Very interesting discussion with many raised eyebrows. Could turn out to be interesting in the long run. Some potentially fruitful seeds planted.

=======================

"Furthermore, [the Department of Public Welfare] has experienced grave injustice as a result of [Walter Sharpe's] failure to address this matter in a timely fashion," a joint answer filed by Domestic Relations and the state Department of Public Welfare states.

The agency claims that because of Walter Sharpe's delay in challenging paternity, it is unable to recoup support payments from the real father.

"As a result of [Walter Sharpe's] delayed actions in this matter, DPW is forced to suffer unfair and irreversible injury."

Example of their behaviour in this case...

Instead of fixing the error, the office changed the personal information on the case to match his, Tanner, his attorney, said in court documents.
"Incredibly, without any order of court or hearing, Domestic Relations stole the identity of [Walter Sharpe] by willfully substituting his biographic information for that of the biological father's," Tanner said in those documents.

I simply can't get over this...government agencies, which actually committed fraud, claiming to be the victim of the individual THEY defrauded to begin with.

A recent article from Australia on this topic;

http://ww.news.com.au/story/0,,24634062-2,00.html

It gives me some hope.

Aaargh! Link does not work. I'll try again....
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,,24634062-2,00.html

Where are the feminists, thou dost ask, Amy? In my country they're condemning the men who fought in past wars for their freedom: http://pelalusa.blogspot.com/2008/11/twisted-mental-juxtapositions-of.html

Can someone please wake me up when this world starts making sense again?!?

At the risk of making myself unpopular (like that should stop anyone from airing an opinion), I would like to point out that the quote from that link does not include any kind of "condemnation" of the soldiers. She is only questioning the appropriateness of thanking them for a sacrifice that they may have had no choice about making.

I can kind of see her point. Haven't you ever been ticked off when somebody forces their way into traffic ahead of you, cutting you off and making you hit the brakes, then waves a "thank you" hand?

@The Other Lily said...

She is only questioning the appropriateness of thanking them for a sacrifice that they may have had no choice about making.

Surely that compulsion makes it MORE appropriate.

And to try to analogise war to a traffic situation is pitiful.

Some women do get it...

I shouldn’t have to remind you that soldiers in combat endure a great deal. I recall hearing of a man who said the buttocks of a mutilated buddy threw into his face. Men see their comrades with their intestines exposed, arms and legs sliced off, and their heads coming off. They hear the anguished cries of men dying. They must constantly fear for their own lives.
- Denise Noe

I had the privilege of spending time with some WWI veterans during the eighties. One of them descibed the Somme as...

...wading through mud, and blood, and shit, and piss, and guts, and body parts. And it went on forever.

Most women don't get it and should not be listened to if they say anything about it.

The majority of men never have to endure the experience but they ALL grow up with the threat of it hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles. Lily, in future you should restain yourself.

...traffic...pitiful...

The analogy was not intended to be comparable in degree, as you should realize. Nor was I in any way implying that soldiers do not deserve appreciation -- not to mention proper pensions and medical care -- for what they have endured in place of the rest of us.

However, I personally find it hypocritical to draft someone, throw him into harm's way whether he's willing to go or not, then talk about his "ultimate sacrifice" when it gets him killed. That seems to me to be a way not so much to honor them as to make ourselves more comfortable about the whole thing.

If you find that disrespectful, I'm sorry -- it is intended to be the opposite.

@Lily...

OK I'll accept your intent was well meant.

And I can understand what you mean by...
"That seems to me to be a way not so much to honor them as to make ourselves more comfortable about the whole thing."

However we do not matter in this. I would suggest this demands of us both the honouring of those compelled AND some self analysis of our willingness to compel.

OK I'll accept your intent was well meant.

Thanks, Gwallan.

However we do not matter in this. I would suggest this demands of us both the honouring of those compelled AND some self analysis of our willingness to compel.

Very reasonable and fair. I would further suggest that in addition to banners and ceremonies (and perhaps instead of generic eulogies) we should try to honor our veterans by making a special effort to talk to them individually and listen to what they have to say if they are so inclined. What better way to show that we care what they've been through and why than to want to know about it?

You can't DNA test every baby born. Nor should you be able to put a man's name on the BC. Either he does it (accepting, as in current law, all legal responsibility for that kid) or you pay for a DNA test and IF that proves it, the state puts him on.

I really don't see the difficulty of requiring paternity tests for child support to unmarried partners. Married ones, of course, would not be needing child support so the question's moot.

I need to forward this to a friend of mine with only boys, who seems to think she's off the hook for her kids sexual indiscretions since they can't get pregnant. I bet some teenage girl could get money out of a minor's parents for child support. Heck yeah, in this sort of climate.

Where did soldiering come into this? I can't tell. Women should be drafted. If Israel can, we can. In fact, I'm all for compulsory military service while young for everyone, wartime or no.

The feminist are the first in line to tell states that any Daddy will do. Just make the men pay. As many men as possible. I wouldn't look to the feminist in this country to right the wrong of paternity fraud. You don't even have to be married to the Mother to be the victim. Just get named and have the bad luck to not get served. Sewer service as they call it. A default judgement, a bad lawyer and then even a negative DNA test won't get you out of paying child support. That's reality. As a woman I've seen it from the victim's side, because when a man is victimized by paternity fraud, his family is victimized too. The backlash against legislation to stop paternity fraud is coming from the feminist.