I am a father of a 3 year old amazing little girl whom I raised since birth until she was two and a half. Some months ago her mother and I went through a rough breakup and as a result I ended up being refused parenting time with our child, that which she had been accustomed to for her entire life at the time. I did the first skin to skin contact that the hospitals ask a parent to do now for bonding, and was her primary caretaker everyday almost for her whole life until the breakup.

 The mother and I were never married, though we lived as if we were and were engaged for years. Neither the mother nor I was aware of the state law in Georgia that says unwed fathers have no rights to their children until they file a legitimation action with the court. Her mother and I assumed I had parental rights just by us both signing the “Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity” which establishes the signing male as the biological father, and makes him responsible to pay support to the mother for the child, but does not establish any rights for the father. Up until 2016 the law allowed both parents to agree to legitimation along with the paternity in the paperwork they filled and filed at the Health Department, but then a group of lawmakers, mostly former attorneys, changed the law and made legitimation a mandatory court procedure. What isn’t told is the average cost of a legitimation with an attorney is $3000, and it’s an incredibly easy $3000 they make. It rarely requires litigation, as it’s often no more than a voluntary consent signed by a Judge. Attempting it without a lawyer however, is time consuming and still costs about 500 dollars, which includes a 350 dollar filing and service fee. If they are unable to serve the mother the first time you must pay 50 dollars for each service attempt filed with the Sheriff’s Office. The law is replete with questions and concerns of its constitutionality. Because Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled that Citizens cannot sue the state over a law’s constitutionality in state court, it’s just been accepted and unchallenged, offering family law attorneys a consistent source of income from desperate fathers wanting rights to their children. The law violates religious rights because in Georgia marriage is founded on biblical principles. The state constitution added an amendment in 2005 that said “marriage is between a man and a woman” stated essentially verbatim as the Bible. Thus a child born in wedlock is automatically legitimated to the husband of the birth mother. It doesn’t matter if the mother had 50 affairs, her husband is automatically the child’s father. Yet in this day and age of countless children born out of wedlock, a child is born fatherless essentially, until the legitimation is completed in court. Freedom of religion is also to be recognized as freedom from religion and this is in the first amendment. The fourteenth amendment provides for equal protection under the laws for all citizens of all states and being as Georgia is the only state out of 50 with the current system, fathers are not afforded equal protection under the laws. Discrimination practices fall under this as well and the law is blatantly bias towards mothers even though it has been proven fathers are just as important to a child’s emotional and physical well being. The specious premise of the law is that the courts will determine if legitimation is, in the best interest of the child, the standard in determining all custody matters in Georgia. However here we see the bias and discrimination against men once again because the standard is saying that a mother is always automatically in the best interest of the child, even with the Casey Anthonys and Susan Smiths out there. A mother need not be legitimated but a man, the father, must. The law is not only archaic but absolutely ridiculous and detrimental to the well being of children and their loving fathers. It is taken advantage of by bitter exes to alienate a child from their father and the law creates a backlog in the courts for a petition that should be established simply by and with paternity.
    I want to repeal O.C.G.A. § 19-7-22 “Legitimation” and replace it with “for unwed fathers, paternity establishment, whether by signing of The Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity Form by both parents, or by genetic testing, affords the putative father all rights ascribed to such as if the child were born to the father in lawful wedlock and all rights equal to the child’s mother”. After enough signatures I will produce this petition to the State House for sponsorship in hopes that the legislature follows through with doing the right thing for fathers, children, and  mothers as well.