Gallant Americans are risking life and limb in Iraq to defend Home and Country. But they never dreamed they might lose their children, too.

When Army National Guard Spc. Joe McNeilly of Grand Ledge, Michigan came home after 15 months in Iraq, he found that a family court "referee" had taken away his joint custody of his 10-year-old son and given full custody and control to the boy's mother.

For five years, McNeilly had had a 50-50 no-problem custody arrangement with his ex-girlfriend Holly Erb. When called up to go to Iraq, he gave her temporary full custody while he was overseas.

While he was gone, Erb persuaded a family court to make her full custody permanent. When McNeilly protested, he was told that his year-long absence constituted abandonment and produced custody "points" against him.

"You want to make a soldier cry, you take his son away," McNeilly said. "It's devastating."

Michigan State Representative Rick Jones became interested in this outrageous injustice. When he contacted the Judge Advocate General's office, he discovered that there are 15 to 20 similar cases in Michigan and it is a common problem all over the country.

Rep. Jones has introduced legislation (H.B.5100) providing that absences for military service cannot be used against a parent and that a permanent custody arrangement cannot be established while a parent is on active duty. He is hearing from legislators in other states who want to sponsor similar bills.

Since McNeilly's case was reported in the local press, Erb's lawyer and the court's spokesmen are trying to claim that depriving him of his father's rights wasn't because he was serving in Iraq, but because of his poor parenting skills.

The proof? McNeilly sent a couple of postcards to his son that showed soldiers training with a gun. Horrors! How un-P.C. to tell a son that our soldiers in Iraq carry guns!

Erb's lawyer asserted that the postcards frightened the boy and showed that McNeilly is not a fit parent. But surely the boy had a right to know about his father's career and that soldiers who use guns are pursuing an honorable vocation.

The referee's report also justified deciding for mother custody because she was the "day-to-day caretaker and decision maker in the child's life" while McNeilly was deployed. But that's what mothers have always done when their men go off to war and it's no argument for taking the child away from his father upon return.

Day-to-day caretaker is feminist jargon to promote their ideology that the mother should have full custody and control because the father is not around to change diapers and do household chores. He is merely working a job, or sometimes two jobs, to support his family.

Follow the money to explain some of the motivation. When the mother was given full custody, the court ordered McNeilly to pay her $525 a month, which she would lose if they return to joint custody.

The real problem in this case is the arrogance of family courts which claim the right to decide child custody based on their subjective personal opinions about the "best interest of the child." Family court judges, and the psychologists and referees they hire, routinely violate the fundamental right of parents to make their own decisions about the best interest of their own children.

Family courts are subjective and arbitrary, so unlucky divorced parents could get a judge or a referee who is anti-gun, or anti-military, or anti-spanking, or anti-homeschooling, or anti-religious, or a feminist who wants to transform the middle class into a matriarchal society as has already been done to the welfare class, with tragic results.

The notion that family court judges, psychologists and referees can impose their personal views about what is "the best interest of the child" rather than a child's own parents is just another way of saying "it takes a village to raise a child." Thousands of good fathers have been deprived of their fundamental rights in the care and upbringing of their children by courts that treat the father as good for nothing except a paycheck.

The large number of fathers who have been the victims of family-court fatherphobia is no doubt the reason that one of the most popular songs on country music stations this year is Tim McGraw's "Do You Want Fries with That?" The lyrics are the cry of a father who is working a minimum-wage second job in a fast-food restaurant, living alone in a tent, after being ordered by a judge to support his children living in his house with his ex-wife and her boyfriend.

The father laments, "You took my wife, and you took my kids, and you stole the life that I used to live; my pride, the pool, the boat, my tools, my dreams, the dog, the cat."

Yeah this has been pissing me off since I was 14 and started getting indoctrinated with the feminist crap. I always used to get sent to the principals office because I would say stuff like "fathers deserve kids just as much as any mother! Any women has just as much chance of being a substance abusers, sexual deviant 1st parents 2nd, and child beater, as any man."

The girls would flip out. I would say stuff like "the law is so unfair, so what I have to be a poor P.O.S. for the rest of my life and you live it up with a playboy in my house and stuff, why? Simply because you decided to become a permiscuous little tramp? Thats ground to invoke the "Live free or Die clause".... That one always got me sent to the office.

Funny thing though... the principal was a Republican who agreed and we'd just kick the bs for an hour till next period!!!

I have read detailed studies of the family courts in California, pointing out that there is a huge divorce lawyer industry. The chief interest of divorce lawyers is to encourage divorces and large settlements, so they can take their cut--much like ambulance chasers.

Where the real catch comes in is that the divorce court JUDGES are mostly divorce court lawyers. They go from the private sector to the public sector, and their chief concern is to see that their buddies in the industry get plenty of fees.

Given the huge potential this system has to enrich the corrupt participants, it's not hard to believe that the same thing is at work in other states. Lawyers love to scratch each others' backs.

I covered a case where a "father's-rights" proponent tried to represent himself. The opposing lawyer flat out lied about whether a required hearing had previously taken place. The activist insisted it hadn't. The judge finally had to admit the hearing hadn't taken place. Any repercussions for the lawyer that lied? None. But as soon as the activist made a legal mistake, bang, hearing over, back to jail.

Is there a forum member that can draft a law that we can take around to our members of congress and have them submit both at the national level and state level.
Law might in effect create a lock on the imposition of changes in custody arangements without consent from the member of military service who is on active duty full time or temporary duty assignment away from their US based post. Further that activities of personnel while on assignment with the US military may not be used as negatives in consideration of custody rights or good parrent character traits. This provision may only be suspended when a person has been convicted of criminal activity while on military assignment.