Dearest community leader:

Please allow me to introduce myself; I am Ray R Lautenschlager, Director for the Akron Chapter of Parents And Children for Equality (PACE). I will explain the purpose of this letter and introduce you to a project that hopefully will interest you into at least talking with me for a few minutes.

As an organization PACE has been involved in attempting to changes the laws of the State Of Ohio to treat divorced and separated parents with the equality that they deserve. Throughout our history we have brought legislation to the Statehouse which has given men a method of fighting false allegations of paternity, made child support reductions faster for servicemen deploying overseas to protect our country and brought and introduced the first equal custody law that guaranteed fit parents equal legal and physical custody after their divorce. We have board members that participated in the review of the child support laws and made recommendations for improvement to that system so that it will better serve every child and parent. In short, we are real and we are here to work hard to see to it that the laws of this state are changed to guarantee every fit parent what the Constitution of already does, equal rights.

About now you are saying, what has this got to do with me and my church. I say a lot more than you realize. If we go back in history when the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s was building steam, it was the preachers of many of the black and white churches that spoke out calling upon the government to change the laws to bring the equality to all people that was then and still is guaranteed by the United States Constitution through its 14^th Amendment. Since that time we have seen equal rights come for women, blacks (actually all races) and most recently Gays. Yet the largest and, sadly, most growing portion of the population of this country has gone totally ignored, that being single and divorced parents.

Under current law in this state, as well as every other, a person can be denied their right to equality simply by judicial discretion and the presentation of hearsay evidence. They can, at the total discretion of a judge, be told when and where they will see their own flesh and blood, when and if any other members of that child’s family may even be associated with effectively destroying any possibility of a normal relationship with true family that loves them. This can happen without any chance of ever regaining any kind of normal relationship unless the parents engage in expensive litigation that will more than likely have the same result. Had the same parent been found unfit by the court system there would have been a plan set forth to correct their own defects and once that was accomplished, allow them to have a normal relationship with their child. Understand also that the rights of the grandparents are also based on the rights given to the parent, so this deepens the estrangement.

While, as an organization, we have been successful on many levels in working with the equality issues, our voices are often dismissed as bitter parents or as people that do not want to support our children and ‘just want to get out of paying child support’. These characterizations are the farthest from the truth.

If a parent has their children on an equal legal and physical basis as we are calling for, they would be paying for 50% of those children’s upbringing. As it is now, the child support laws state that they are to pay a mere 15% of their income towards the welfare of that child. That 15% is the bottom line not what can actually be assigned as this amount can be ‘imputed’ and a parent, again at the total discretion of a judge, assigned a higher amount, amount that is so large that the non-custodial parent can not even afford to spend time with they own children.

You will be told that equal custody promotes domestic violence. Another misnomer as when we introduced the equal parenting bill, we were very careful to make sure that the safe guards remained in place to protect victims of domestic violence.

Now what I am asking you to do is ask the divorced members and single parent members of your church if they have been treated fairly by the Domestic Relations Court. Ask them if their rights were granted equally are provided by the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. You will hear that no, they were not.

What I am asking you to do is join us in speaking out and send a clear message to the rest of the community that equal rights for every fit parent is a must. These laws must be changed and I am asking your help in accomplishing this so that every fit parent may enjoy equal legal and physical custody.

Should you have any questions about this, please, I encourage you to ask me anything you would like and I hope that we can have an open conversation on this issue very soon so that equal parenting can become a reality for every member of this state and the entire country. If you wish to help in this, I can even provide talking points for you.

Sincerely,

Ray R. Lautenschlager

Director

Parents And Children for Equality

Akron Chapter