Wonder when this was re-written as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all MEN ~ at least ~ are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator by certain unalienable rights. . .. that among these are ETERNALLY UNALIENATED RELATIONSHIPS,** LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS . . . . .
**with the “fruit of the womb” of alienated relationships with (adult) ex-wives, i.e., namely, their kids.

THIS PROMPTED MY POST:

“Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Ross in Nassau County ruled that the mother, Lauren R., willfully violated a court order by deliberately alienating the elementary school-age children from her ex-husband, Ted R.” (cite, below)

Ex-Wife Ordered Jailed for Alienating Children From Father

THIS JUNE 2010 ARTICLE FROM the NY LAW JOURNAL IS BELOW, BUT WHILE READING IT, CONSIDER:

I lay THREE challenges before readers:

• (1) Find me ONE remarried FATHER who was jailed, or threatened with it — and lectured — for doing the exact same thing to his wife, and for the same reason. And where a judge cited in the reasons for his/her opinion, that the father “smirked in the courtroom.” I open up the contest nationwide, not just NY, although how’s about in this same county?
• 
  
• (2) Find me how this same judge ruled on other similar cases.
  
• 
  
• (3) Understanding that these policies supporting and promoting fatherhood, of which mandated shared-parenting policies(etc.) are but one arm — were pushed through Congress as a solution to the LOW-income father issue, the female-headed (poor) household, PWORA WELFARE REFORM (and I’ve posted some of the Congressional transcripts surrounding it on my blog, too) — and is obviously affecting some very NOT-POOR households (except to the extent they are drained of finances through legal fees or child support rulings) why should this case, here in Nassau County, profit from that philosophy, and WHEN will these policies, based on the erroneous target population (expanded to everyone with a Y chromosome and offspring under 18 years old) be retracted?
  
  • The father here spent over $100K on legal fees, and won,  to express how hurt he was from being deprived of a relationship with his kids for (was it, a period of six WEEKS?) ?  Or was that just the exception to the rule?  Because the policy IS part of welfare reform, child support collection, and based on the theory that Dads who have more contact with their kids will do better at paying child support.
    
  • NOTE;  “3” is an essay question and rhetorical, obviously…
    

(“EXTRA CREDIT” — since our whole nation, almost, is either being taught, or teaching, or setting the national educational curriculum womb to tomb and how to marry, not have sex before it, divorce, co-parent, stop violence against women, intervene with batterers, supervise visitation, facilitate noncustodial parent’s access to their kids, support children, coordinate parents, counsel parents, manage high-conflict parents, promote mental health and evaluate the psychological health of everyone who is NOT a psychologist — I figured I’d get in there too…And put readers back to school ‘Extra Credit’ if someone is motivated to do the background on THIS case (i can’t..).

You can’t afford the time either?  Got Job?  OK, then (if you’re not in a job in one of the above professions), then you are paying for the rest of us to be threatened by judges for our bad attitudes towards our exes — OR, to utilize judges to communicate this threat to ex-wives, or ex-girlfriends.  (For a great role model, take Mel Gibson…)…  Seriously — if you have a “job” (i.e., pay taxes) you ARE funding these theories, and the courts.  JUDGES are public employees, right?  As are everyone it takes to run the family court business revolving door.  But, ab ove and beyond that obvious function, and ALL the functions of running courthouses, there is ALSO a stream of federal funding to the Judicial Council of California to push policies that this is a prime example of.  Anyone tracking those funds?  Doubt it.  (See bottom of my last post — it’s primarily what this blog is about, too…)  OK, so EXTRA CREDIT would be:

• Find how the ex-wife’ attorney’s track record goes. . . The wussy (?)(or — sensible; after all, he may have to stand in front of same judge in other cases?) (or, threw the case?) mother’s attorney didn’t dare express indignation and outrage before a judge, but just, in the press, said:

  • Ms. R.’s attorney, Kieth I. Rieger of Barrocas & Rieger in Garden City, N.Y., praised Ross, but criticized the decision, likening it to last week’s missed umpire call that cost a Detroit Tigers pitcher a perfect game.

    “I think all of us make mistakes, and I think he’s just made a good-faith, honest mistake in his assessment of this case,” Rieger said. “That’s why there’s an Appellate Division. I think he just did not accurately assess my client.

     

• Find how the father’s attorney’s track record goes. Too.  I comment on the both of them in the body of the article, below.  But attorneys have clients.  Clients have case histories.  Case histories have a custody-switch factor, a case docket, at times.

REALLY UNALIENABLE RIGHTS — BUT

(don’t smirk) ONLY IF ASSERTED:

Here’s part of the original, the wording of which has been forgotten. Or, which, the inclusion of men of color and women of all colors, in this, never was meant to happen . . . .

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

New Version:

A father’s, at least, UNALIENABLE RIGHT NOT TO BE ALIENATED

(and, don’t smirk in court, or else…)

Ex-Wife Ordered Jailed for Alienating Children From Father

Mark Fass

New York Law Journal

June 08, 2010

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A Long Island, N.Y., judge has sentenced a woman to six weekends in jail for repeatedly undermining her ex-husband’s relationship with their two daughters.

Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Ross in Nassau County ruled that the mother, Lauren R., willfully violated a court order by deliberately alienating the elementary school-age children from her ex-husband, Ted R.

Ross held Ms. R. in civil contempt and ordered her to report to the Nassau County Correctional Facility every other weekend this summer.

Her term was to have begun on Friday, but was temporarily stayed pending appeal by a judge from the Appellate Division, 2nd Department, on Thursday.

“, The evidence before me demonstrates a pattern of willful and calculated violations of the clear and express dictates of the parties’ Stipulation of Settlement,” Ross wrote in Lauren R. v. Ted R., 203699-02.

“The extensive record is replete with instances of attempts to undermine the relationship between the children and their father and replace him with her new husband, manipulation of defendant’s parenting access, utter and unfettered vilification of the defendant to the children, false reporting of sexual misconduct without any semblance of ‘good faith,’ and her imposition upon the children to fear her tirades and punishment if they embrace the relationship they want to have with their father.”

The extraordinary hearing to determine whether Ms. R. should be held in contempt for violating the couple’s stipulation of settlement began in May 2009 and stretched over 23 days of hearings over the next nine months.

During the hearing, Mr. R. testified** to dozens of occasions in which his ex-wife either interfered with his visitation rights or purposefully alienated the children from him

The judge described about a dozen such incidents or patterns in his eight-page decision.

In the winter of 2007, for example, Ms. R. prevented Mr. R. from seeing his daughters for six weeks, Ross wrote.

“I observed the plaintiff smirk in the courtroom as defendant >>emotionally<< related how he was deprived of spending Hanukkah with his children, and was relegated to lighting a menorah and watching his daughters open their grandparents’ presents in the back of his truck at the base of plaintiff’s driveway,” the judge wrote.

Mr. R. also testified that Ms. R. consistently scheduled theater outings and social activities with her children so that they would conflict with his visitation, thereby putting him in the position of either consenting to a missed visit or risking disappointing his daughters.

The “crescendo” of Ms. R.’s contempt involved false accusations of sexual abuse against Mr. R., the judge wrote.

“Allegations that defendant had injured the child were found to be baseless and, by making such allegations, plaintiff needlessly subjected the child to an investigation by Child Protective Services, placing her own interests above those of the child,” Ross wrote. “This report was not made in ‘good faith’ — rather, the investigating agency warned the mother not to re-utilize the allegations and her children in her custodial litigation with the defendant.”

In addition to the contempt finding and the temporarily stayed jail sentence, Ross ordered a hearing to consider a change of custody and to hear Mr. R.’s application for more than $134,000 in attorney fees. Those hearings were postponed pending Ms. R.’s appeal.

Ms. R.’s attorney, Kieth I. Rieger of Barrocas & Rieger in Garden City, N.Y., praised Ross, but criticized the decision, likening it to last week’s missed umpire call that cost a Detroit Tigers pitcher a perfect game.

“I think all of us make mistakes, and I think he’s just made a good-faith, honest mistake in his assessment of this case,” Rieger said. “That’s why there’s an Appellate Division. I think he just did not accurately assess my client.”

Stanley Hirsch, also of Garden City, represented Mr. R.

“I’m very hopeful that this case will be some type of warning to those who don’t have the children’s best interests at heart when they conduct themselves with their spouses,” Hirsch said. “It has great significance to my client, but I think it has a terrific overall impact on people who are going through a divorce and not getting along and involving the children in their disputes.”