North Carolina Judge Mangum in Wake County has disgraced himself -- and the freedom loving, self-confident half of the scientific world -- by engaging in what looks like science-bigotry in none other than a divorce case.
Talk about history mirroring itself. It was in Tennessee that the South did disgrace itself many years ago by engaging in religious-bigotry to prevent a teacher from introducing a theory – Darwin's Evolution – into his own Tennessee classroom to challenge a legislated bigotry that was designed to establish Bible teachings as official doctrines for students to accept without 'confusion' of other ideas of where humans came from.
This year is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. In the aftermath of the science community's impotence in the face of GWBushism's imposition of his own brand of political Christianity – done to stifle the environmental and other dissenting science advising voices opposing his policies -- now the science magazines, the academic community and the media have been engaging in an orgy of articles, full magazine focused issues and celebratory events to flaunt Darwinism 'rightness' and to ridicule 'creationism'. Their goal is to combat the residual political doctrines that had so irritated the science and academic world -- Bushism's religious group paybacks to political supporters, that evolution be demoted to questioned theory level in student textbooks. The overriding strident attitude of these editorials and feature articles was to trumpet a hollow sounding success story that encourages bigotry among those whose grasp of freedom's essence and American rights -- not to mention genuine scientific confidence when questioned -- is slipping into the dustbin.
It appears to have permeated the mind of Judge Mangum whose blatantly prejudiced orders to strip a homeschooling mother of her parental rights to suit an overly adulterous spouse in order to 'challenge' her children's religious beliefs is making so much unfavorable news that he's revised his initial reliance on everything that happened -- and was exposed online -- in the courtroom documents that have been hashed over on the internet – print and broadcast media – and trying to justify his original injustice on the basis of other less public documents which he thinks will not be as easily accessed by the public online. But we shall see, it doesn't look like the internet's justice system is going to be deterred any time soon.
The controversy is still generating a lot of attention with little consensus on the issues except that
-- parents should have the right to guide and structure their children's education and upbringing
and that
-- the judge thoroughly was making a mess of the case by ordering the children to attend public schooling while allowing the adulterous husband to live in the common home that he's disgraced with his adulterous affairs which still continue publicly. And further insisting that only the mother be psychologically evaluated, for which she would be expected to pay in spite of her current stay-at-home mother status as basically a pauper with the absolute minimum childsupport allowable under the state's formula, ignoring the substantial $122,000/year income of the adulterous father.
Politically, their state senator condemned the judge's order as 'terrible' and North Carolina Governor Perdue had just reaffirmed her position as supporting homeschooling for its contribution to excellence and to diversity in the education efforts of the state. All of which criticisms are likely being brought to the judge's notice just as opinions are being formulated publicly. Clearly the adulterous husband has considerable influence in the minds of some officials but his behavior is despicable and we would suggest that there be another poll conducted to answer the following issue.
Kings and baronets have abdicated their rights as kings and elites in order to be with their true love, giving up all power over the country they were ruling or ceding their titles to younger brothers. This kingship right is a family right. As is a barony. What about parenthood, is it abdicatable? Can it be lost due to malfeasance?
Just how unending is parenthood? Is the holder of the title 'parent' able to lose all power over the family rights that they once held? In fact, parenthood claims cease because some are able to give up their children for adoption. Parenthood ends then, so clearly it's not a lifelong, inalienable right and is abdicatable. What about a child abuser claiming parenthood? Even a pedophile. Conviction of serious crimes – felonies and damaging criminal activity – that result in lengthy imprisonment -- for violence especially -- effectively terminate most family relationships for at least the incarceration period and sometimes forever. Just how inalienable, vulnerable to malfeasance evidence, are parenthood's rights?
Florida, and by now probably other states, have judged that a child who is of a certain knowledgeable age – about early teen age, just a couple years older than these children -- can divorce his or her father – or mother – so the parent-right can be terminated at will for malfeasance, hence it can also be lost for malfeasance and is not inalienable.
In this contest of wills between Vanessa Mills and Thomas Mills, his demand that his children should not be allowed to continue homeschooling under their mother's direction is the pivotal issue.
To evaluate the fitness of the defendant Thomas Mills to be a co-parent, we need to evaluate the judge's decided preference for Thomas Mills – since the judge's apparent bias could be serving as an indicative favorable character witness.
The judge has -- unexplainably in justice terms -- sided with this adulterous husband to the extent of actually having made biased references in the court proceedings including to the idea that he would be looking forward to how public schooling would "challenge" Vanessa's teaching of her rightfully-held and chosen faith in the minds of her children. Unexplainably because – for a judge's professional responsibility, he's supposed to be committed to fairness and impartiality and evidence and to protecting the innocent children in divorce cases, not treating them as rats in a maze. Instead his judicial favoritism pointedly sided with the public school option (cheapest for one party and on that party's demand list) -- not an alternate private schooling less disruptive to the children considering their religious background and more acceptable to the other party in this dispute who had removed her children specifically from public schools, as well as sensibly acceptable presumably to a well-to-do reasonable father, clue number one. This judge-person's professional sense of justice does willingly want to put the children's feet to the flames instead of protecting their fragile interests. How much do you trust someone's judgment who would harm small animals and children in crisis? How trustworthy is his character valuation?
Bias occurs when opinions get adopted in spite of evidence to the contrary, leading to clue number two. The judge's bias – yes bias because the judge's statements are in conflict with the evidence presented in this case -- is confirmed by other comments he made. Specifically, in one comment he disparaged these children's education for lack of socialization in their homeschooling – which was effectively disputed with extensive lists of the children's social activities within and outside their homeschooling community, which evidence he was fully aware of in the documents that the presiding judge has in preparation for a case like this. How trustworthy is the judgement of someone who selectively ignores facts of evidence and presents character support for false claims?
The list of demonstrations of bias continues. The children are doing well academically – judging by the state's testing – and this academic progress under Vanessa's guidance was openly acknowledged in the courtroom by all parties. Yet the judge steadfastly maintains his opposition which is solely focused on their unusual religious beliefs that make them different from the public school's mandated teachings. The judge's attack is against homeschooling's rightful role as a valued diversity component of the state's education programming and a stimulus for excellence in learning. This role is specifically stated in the Governor's proclamation honoring homeschooling's academic excellence and diversity value to the state just recently. This judge is ignorant of or disdainful of the importance of diversity -- strictly bigotry, in spite of the testimony and evidence of his peers and betters in North Carolina's government. Such a stance shows ugly bigotry instead of judicial fairness based on evidence. Judge Mangum's bigoted performance disqualifies his opinion of the defendant adulterous husband, and in fact suggests an unsavory truth about his favored party.
There was no evidence presented that showed that the children's rightful comfort in their current caregiving was in need of improvement, with the exception of the influence of the adulterous husband. The current pseudo-science-based-bigotry is being applied by an ignorant judge instead of professional judgment of rightness, otherwise these conflicts between evidence and bigotry-based orders could not have happened. The judge has been brainwashed into desecrating constitutional respect for religious freedom. His reliance on the general consensus of the establishment scientific community in favor of evolution is no excuse for desecrating his responsibility to American justice under constitutional law.
Furthermore, a general consensus by the scientific community doesn't make the status of theories invulnerable to change. In the beginning of the last century, it was the consensus of the physics community within the science world that they had fully identified the laws of physics and it was now merely a matter of refinement of the constants of their glorified physical laws. Then came Einstein, then came quantum theory, then the physics community exploded with new ideas never dreamed of before in their earlier complacency. Genuine science doesn't quail before questioning people and instead demand that they salute. Personally I tend to think the evolution evidence – though not the science evidence on consciousness nor life -- will hold up to the ongoing exploration of the intricacies of how evolution works in the myriad situations where it must be operating. But that doesn't preclude honoring another's sincerely held ideas that hurt no one, including Thomas Mills nor the judge, and may in fact hold the key to understanding consciousness or life.
Hence we shall consider the Judge's opinion of the situation and his favored defendant to be faulty and shall disqualify that judge as a reliable character reference for the defendant. In fact we shall be leery of this defendant because the favorable opinion of his examining character witness – the court's judge -- is based on that witness blocking out evidence, which is a bad sign. However, we shall start again from scratch and examine the existing evidence and see what it shall indicate about whether Thomas Mills would be a fit co-parent or has abdicated his parental rights.
What evidence of parental aptitude has Thomas Mills shown or has he shown evidence of significant malfeasance and callous abusiveness in his dealings with these children and dishonesty in his claims of caring?
We begin by looking at his claims of caring and what they show about his motivations and priorities. He claims his success as a co-parent is dependent on Vanessa's ceasing to homeschool their children and that their children must attend public school. This is his priority demand so he can have equal co-custody. Some people would agree that his rights were being violated if his wife's chosen method of educating their children was to be continued at his expense.
But what about the children's wellbeing since this is a priority in fairly adjudicating a divorce where children are involved. Otherwise the children's wellbeing is being set aside in favor of one demander – as are the parental rights of the other party being unjustly set aside.
Our precondition for even considering his demand should be that the children would be enrolled in a Montessori or Quaker private school which would be necessary to protect children being uprooted and shuffled around like property between hostile parties. And further it would be a precondition that the demander shall be responsible for all tuition since this change is at his own demand.
Thomas Mills' only reason available for making such a demand is so he can be fully involved in their children's education while they are in his custody. But has he demonstrated that this involvement is how he will operate when he is no longer under duress of court judgment? The children's wellbeing is at risk here as well as the imposition of a possible injustice to their mother's own rights to control her children's education and upbringing. That upbringing and education has been acknowledged by both the defendant and the judge -- in the courtroom -- to be fine mothering and to show proficiency in her handling her children's education. So we must not allow the children's welfare to be disrespected.
We shall not tolerate any cessation of homeschooling that does not meet the private schooling requirement. Should Thomas Mills insist that his requirement of public schooling is a precondition in order for him to agree to other settlement terms. We shall point out that this homeschooling arrangement was in place for the LAST FOUR YEARS during which it was never disputed UNTIL Vanessa filed for divorce after finding out about Thomas Mills' adulterous affairs. Somehow this his current demand suggests something other than genuine disputed parenthood rights on Thomas Mills' side, more like paybacks for divorcing him. This is what he would be revealing about his parenting motivations.
In addition it reveals that he gets other benefits from such a demand of insisting on public schooling. First of all, he avoids the expenses that she is incurring as part of her homeschooling processes. And public schooling is cheap by any financial standards and even moreso for him because his income would allow private schooling in the venues we have selected for their philosophy where children are respected.
With acceptance of our precondition of appropriate private schooling which he would pay for, we can now examine his track record of parenting under previous circumstances.
Thomas Mills' own proven acceptance for four years of Vanessa's religious-based homeschooling -- into which his contribution of time and attention was likely absent due to his philandering with a mistress -- suggests that his newfound upright-concern that his wife and children are 'IN A CULT' is fraudulent play-acting, indicating that he is fully capable of attempting to swindle the court, disrespecting the oath he took to tell the truth while telling a lie under oath. That alone would disqualify his pledges of caring co-parenting as reliable in our opinion.
But there's more to this strange lying than just reliability in pledging caregiving.
What sort of genuine parent would be pleased FOR FOUR YEARS-- including statements to that effect in his court testimony while simultaneously expecting the court to believe that the homeschooling of his children was an arrangement he genuinely considered to be 'BRAINWASHING' of those children 'IN A CULT' of Vanessa's choosing, making her the scapegoat of his displeasure??
Which leaves the alternative explanation standing that his demand is abusive in the extreme. Abusers' main weapon in holding their victims from relief and from escaping further abuse is to isolate them from friends and family. This tactic is recognized as a defining characteristic of abusers. Thomas Mill's phony concern – to which the judge is providing malfeasant support – does precisely this. Specifically, Vanessa's homeschooling friends and her church 'family' are in support of her rightful freedom from a terminated relationship with an adulterous husband and he knows his scapegoating claims will cut those ties better than he is otherwise able, especially if he and his lawyer can dupe the judge into enforcing Vanessa's separation from her support groups' mutual ongoing children's activities and social/religious events where divorced women are less welcome in most circles.
We may not be able to look over their shoulders in their private life – past – but we can measure some behaviors in their present circumstances and compare them to standards. Other signs of abusive mentality that are emerging include the suggestion for Vanessa to undergo demeaning evaluation as an unstable mother and his personal vendetta is to denigrate her publicly before her friends and church membership.
Add to that the monetary issues of their marital circumstances, where she must effectively submit individual requests for HIS approval of hers and the children's and household expenses before he will release the money. His financial status revealed his rather lavishly well-endowed income of over $9,000 PER MONTH with a house mortgage of only about $1,100 per month. What exactly is his other use of funds that he must be so completely tight-fisted and stingy, unless it's the need to pamper one or more mistresses, some of whom he still plays tennis with, openly embarrassing his wife and children in front of their friends and neighbors. Otherwise his money practices are simply another abusive tactic.
Nor has there been any claim by Thomas Mills that his personal and emotional needs were not met by his wife, nor that she is irresponsible with money. Nor is there any sign of some other source of income in Vanessa's past, such as an endowment or trustfund that she would be expected -- even obligated to consider -- to be using for her and her children's needs and expenses.
Can someone who has so many indicative behaviors that fit the description of an abuser actually be expected to be a caring co-parent?
What's the prospect for success as a co-parent in domestic relations experience?
My former brother-in-law was a decent co-parent but he was also a decent parent. Conversely, my own ex-husband immediately ceased to pay the minimum child support and was eventually excluded from further contact under risk of arrest for non-support of my children should he show up. That minimal amount was so low because my lawyer and my-now-ex's lawyer could not get agreement from him on any other higher amount and this was the rock bottom permissible amount in domestic relations rules -- even for minimal income situations -- even though my-now-ex was quite well off where he was and I was making the transition to new employment in my family's new home. When – in court -- the judge considered $25/month/child in 1983 to be unacceptably low, my own lawyer – who had spent many years in domestic relations court as judge as well as many years as a lawyer – cautioned the judge not to disallow this settlement and predicted that the child support would likely not be paid in any case since my lawyer's experience as a judge had shown him that there are men who do not perform as fathers and, in my case, my now-ex would never be a father to my children in any capacity in the lawyers' opinion because my now-ex was already reneging on his lawyer's billing and had an impressive lack of interest in his own young daughter to the extent that he had never held her for any longer than one picture taking moment or two since she was born 12 months before our divorce was filed. In my lawyer's own experience as a judge there was no point in expecting co-parenting when the individual was not a decent parent in the home before the disruption. Which my-now-ex wasn't and my sister's now-ex was. Rule applies across genders.
So now let's add up the evidence and figure out just whether co-parenting is a reasonable expectation or if Thomas Mills has abdicated his fatherhood of Vanessa's children and has criminally terminated their family-identity for his own pleasure.
Thomas Mills now claims that his children have been laboring under brainwashing influence as part of a cult religion that his wife did join FOR THE LAST FOUR YEARS... while his father-role was what? Was he getting involved in 'his' children's educational activities, not likely, mistresses tend to complicate group activities? Was he so concerned about THE CULT that he was reaching out to change 'his' children's education arrangements, not according to his records. He was pleased with their academic progress. He considered his wife's homeschooling to be within his level of acceptability during the period while he was adulterous. Conveniently for his purposes in adultery. Obviously he not only had the time to do things, he had the money – AND THE CONTROL OF THAT MONEY'S EXPENDITURES ON HOMESCHOOLING – to make his wishes wellknown if they were in any conflict with hers. HIS NOW-CLAIMS ARE SEEN CLEARLY AS UNTRUE. His concern was to find and entertain a mistress or more than one, using his lavish income, boat, tennis and other apparently extensive free-time -- sufficient to do these things. We do judge him accordingly as having abdicated his fatherhood of Vanessa's children on the basis of malfeasance as a parent to those children and as having terminated his marital relationship with Vanessa, publicly.
Therefore we do find Thomas Mills in contempt of court for lying – under oath likely – about his parental role and about his concerns for his wife's sanity and her church relationship. He is merely abusing Vanessa and destroying the peaceful homeschooling lives of 'his' children -- now still successful academically and still socially involved with the wider public in their routine homeschooling events than they would otherwise be in public school – for his own pleasure and sadistic attempts to damage his wife who dared to divorce him for his criminal adultery.
We further maintain that his demands be dismissed and that the children's wellbeing be allowed to go undisturbed as much as possible.
Nor should he be able to fail to pay for the mortgage that he agreed to as the earning member of an economic union with Vanessa, minus an allowance for salary of his own personal housekeeper. However due to the unlikelihood of this ever reaching completion of this mortgage's terms since this arrangement will be seen as disagreeable to anybody in this divorcing situation, the house should be sold and the proceeds split, with an adequate portion set aside from Thomas Mills 50% share to cover the normal realignment of the stay-at-home partner's earning prospects. Thomas Mills – as the financial manager of the economic union he and Vanessa set up -- is obligated to honor the normal employment realignment requirements for Vanessa just as he would for himself if he had lost his income temporarily. An economic union is an economic union – evenfor those couples where they have arranged for one party to be a stay-at-home parent to the exclusion of that party's continued development of a career. Financial planning usually advises a 6 month savings account be established to cover the eventuality of a 'job-loss' requiring the finding and the beginning of new employment as available because this job-seeking is basically what he has caused. This implies a transition payment upfront to fund such six-month savings account for such an eventuality now occurring, even though -- or because -- Thomas Mills was the one whose earning career was enabled to thrive above his own individual powers because of full support at home. Taking the funding for this six-month savings account to support Vanessa's job transition out of the house sales proceeds is sensible because it is unlikely – though it is possible -- that he would have been agreeable without oversight. No further demands for her support shall be honored should they be made by Vanessa Mills.
As for child support, Thomas Mills will probably welch on that after the dust has settled so that child support amount should be alleviated or reduced to some safety minimum. Such precaution of establishing a defaulting figure is necessary in order to protect the children and Vanessa from later disruption of their post-divorce relief by an unsavory re-intrusion of an emotionally charged ex-husband in the future -- after never supporting the children as is frequently and tragically seen in general domestic relations practice. We do not recommend any but overseen visitation for Thomas Mills since he has displayed abusiveness in his personal relationship and neglect when it was to his advantage.
Vanessa now is responsible for her own children and her own wellbeing. Judging from the mortgage payment, the current home – at interest rates recently available for ordinary payment terms to credibly employed married men – could supply enough equity by now to adequately pay for a small, decent doublewide in the country, free and clear, assuming Thomas Mills was even a halfway decent manager of his own finances. With enough creativity, it's still possible to homeschool three well supplied responsible children – one at least 12 years old -- in Ohio using OHDELA -- Ohio Distance Education and Learning Academy which is quite friendly to homeschoolers -- and parttime work for Vanessa. Governor Perdue, how about in North Carolina?
Case closed. Court adjourned, we wish.
