By Stacey Range
Lansing State Journal

Michigan courts could not consider a parent's absence for military service in determining custody cases under a bill that won unanimous approval in a state House committee Tuesday.

During the sometimes emotional debate, members of the House Family and Children's Services Committee said men and women serving the country should be honored and rewarded, not punished for their service.

"I can't tell you how angry this makes me," said state Rep. Barb Vander Veen, R-Allendale, as she fought back tears.

House Bill 5100 is expected to receive strong support when it's taken up in the full chamber as soon as next week. The bill was prompted by a custody dispute involving a Grand Ledge father who claims his 15-month tour in Iraq is the only reason he is being denied shared custody of his 10-year-old son, Joey.

"I'm being treated like I abandoned my son," Army National Guard Spc. Joe McNeilly told the committee.

Joey's mother and her lawyer say the case is about McNeilly's parenting skills, not his service. Neither attended Tuesday's hearing.

Also testifying before the committee was Dr. Gianina Cazan-London, a major in the U.S. Army Reserves. The Highland woman said her ex-husband is trying to gain permanent custody of their 5-year-old daughter to prevent her from taking the girl with her when she moves to San Antonio next month to begin active duty.

"We need protection," she urged the committee.

"This will come up over and over again unless you do something."

The cases are among the latest in a growing number of custody battles across the nation in which Guard members and reservists say they are being punished by family courts because they were called to duty.

Capt. John Wojcik, judge advocate general to the Michigan National Guard, said last month that he knew of 15 to 20 similar custody battles in his branch alone.

Since introducing his bill in August, Republican Rep. Rick Jones of Grand Ledge said he's heard from parents in similar situations in Wisconsin, Ohio, Kentucky and California.

"This is probably the most un-American thing I've heard of in a long time," Jones told the committee.

Kent Weichmann, chair of the State Bar of Michigan's family law section, was the only person to testify in opposition of the bill.

Weichmann said the bill would destroy the Child Custody Act by putting fairness to parents' interests ahead of the child's best interests.

Under the act now, he said, custody is determined by what is best for the child, including which parent the child has bonded with.

Court records show that's a key argument in the McNeilly case.

McNeilly, 33, had agreed to give his ex-girlfriend, Holly Erb of Mason, full custody of Joey while he was deployed in Iraq.

A custody order said the issue would be revisited when McNeilly returned, but a referee for Ingham County Friend of the Court in May recommended against restoring shared custody, saying that Joey's mother was the "day-to-day caretaker and decision maker in the child's life" and that she had established a custodial environment for Joey while McNeilly was deployed.

Erb's lawyer, Theresa Sheets of Lansing, has said Erb is concerned that McNeilly is not a fit father. Sheets pointed to some postcards that McNeilly sent his son from Iraq depicting soldiers in training. She said they frightened the boy.

Rep. Jack Hoogendyke, R-Kalamazoo, said that he doesn't overlook the bond created between a child and custodial parent while the other parent is away. But, he said, the state also can't assume that active duty diminishes the bond between the child and absent parent.

"That child is not going to say 'My daddy left me,' " Hoogendyke said. "That child is going to say 'My daddy put his life on the line for me.' "

Contact Stacey Range at 377-1157 or srange@lsj.com.