Guiding Legal Principles

The Policy Center asserts that domestic relations law across all fifty states must conform to core American legal principles, constitutional due process, and the protection of fundamental parental liberty interests.

  1. CONSTITUTIONAL SUPREMACY:

    The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land; all state laws are subordinate to it; and any state law that exceeds its guarantees is no law at all.

    • Rights Are Individual: The rights guaranteed by the constitution are individual rights that cannot depend upon marital status or changes in marital status between a child's parents.
    • Broad Authority Limits: Broad grants of power under state family law statutes cannot authorize the infringement of constitutional guarantees.
    • Rights Are Civil Rights: The rights guaranteed to the people against state action in the 14th Amendment are Individual Civil Rights.
    • Federal Review: State family law statutes and judicial actions are subject to federal constitutional review in federal courts.
  2. PARENTAL RIGHTS:

    Natural parents receive protection for their parental rights when they establish the parent-child relationship.

    • The source of these rights is the value we place on the natural parent-child relationship and the bonds of affection created by the biological relationship that serve to protect and nurture children.
    • Individuals with a credible claim of biological parentage have a right to prove that parentage through minimally invasive medical testing.
    • Natural parents have an inherent right to know they have a biological child and to establish a relationship superior to presumptive marital parentage.
  3. PARENTAL PRESUMPTION:

    The right of parents to be presumed fit and to be acting in their child's best interest is the family law civil equivalent of the criminal principle asserting "all accused are innocent until proven guilty." The state carries the burden of proof to overcome this presumption.

  4. CHILD'S RIGHTS:

    Children have a right to know their biological parents and to the extent that the biological parent is willing, to have an equal parent-child relationship with that parent.

    • Children have the right to be in their fit parent's care, custody, and control and to benefit from parental decision making.
    • This includes the right to be protected by the parent from unwanted government intrusion into their personal lives.
    • The minimum standard of care duty is shared by both parents equally where both parents are living.
  5. NO DISCRIMINATION BASED ON MARITAL STATUS:

    Marital status cannot be used to deny fundamental rights to parents or their children. State infringement of individual parental rights incident to divorce or because parents never married constitutes unlawful marital status discrimination.

  6. PROTECTED CHOICES:

    Citizens may not be penalized or have fundamental rights curtailed based on the exercise of a constitutionally protected choice (including the decision to marry, not marry, divorce, or establish a separate household).

  7. HARM TO CHILDREN:

    Depriving a child of their protected parent-child relationship with either fit parent is direct harm to the child which can be overcome only by proof that a parent is harming the child in an unlawful way to an unlawful degree under standards applicable to all parents.

  8. RIGHTS IN CONFLICT & LEAST RESTRICTIVE MEANS:

    A disagreement between fit parents regarding child rearing does not diminish the rights of either parent, nor does it provide a trigger for state intervention into private parental decisions.

    • Compelling State Interest: State intervention requires an affirmative showing in the record of a narrowly drawn compelling state interest.
    • Least Restrictive Means: The state may only infringe fundamental rights using the least restrictive or least intrusive means available.
    • Mandatory Balancing Tests: State courts must employ rigorous procedural balancing tests (e.g. Mathews v. Eldridge).