U.S. Representative Michael R. Turner sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Wednesday afternoon calling on the Pentagon to support a federal solution that safeguards military parents’ custody rights just as the military protects a service member from penalties associated with utility and auto lease contracts.
U.S. Representative Michael R. Turner sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Wednesday afternoon calling on the Pentagon to support a federal solution that safeguards military parents’ custody rights just as the military protects a service member from penalties associated with utility and auto lease contracts.
Currently, military parents have no guarantee that their child custody agreements will be preserved while they are called away on deployment. In some states, military parents have lost custody of their children due to their military service or even the possibility of their deployment.
For the last three years, Rep. Turner has offered an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) providing military parents basic child custody protection while on active duty, yet each time the amendment has been opposed by the Pentagon. Rep. Turner continues to call on the Defense Department to drop its long-standing opposition to granting federal child custody protections to deployed military personnel.
“What is particularly troubling is that the DoD has misplaced priorities with regard to federal protections for service members. It has no objection to the FY10 NDAA House language allowing service members to cancel their cell phone contracts without penalty after orders of deployment, yet it opposes protecting the child custody rights of these same service members. Surely custody rights are at least equally important,” Rep. Turner said.
In his opposition to Rep. Turner’s child custody protections, Secretary Gates expressed the desire to allow states to individually pass their own custody protections. According to the Defense Department, approximately 28 states currently afford some level of custody protections for service members, but their approaches vary widely. Still other states offer no such protections for military personnel at all. Such disparities underscore precisely why it is necessary to enact a baseline of federal protections for service members.
Rep. Turner’s child custody protection amendment was included in the House-passed FY10 NDAA. The Senate companion bill does not contain custody protection language. Both bills are now in conference.