Are they deadbeats who've walked out on their kids and their responsibilities? Or decent fathers persecuted by a system which values them only as wallets?

Over the past several months the government of Michigan has been singling out so-called "deadbeat dads" for humiliation and punishment, including new punitive laws and an incendiary billboard campaign.

Debbie Kline is the new Executive Director of the Association for Children for the Enforcement of Support, a nationwide organization which advocates tougher child support enforcement and has frequently been an opponent of the fathers' rights movement. Murray Davis is a longtime Michigan fathers' rights activist and the vice-president of the National Family Justice Association. 

Kline and Davis squared off on the Michigan crackdown, child support, and child support enforcement.

To learn more about the Michigan situation, see:

"First correct problems in Michigan's system to ensure the state doesn't target innocent parents" (Detroit News, 3/28/04)  by Murray Davis and Dianna Thompson.

"State needs to improve abysmal collection record: Children suffer when deadbeat parents fail to pay" (Detroit News, 3/28/04) by Rep. Dave Robertson.

Also, listen to Davis and Thompson discuss this issue on His Side, go to Michigan Fathers Under Siege (3/7/04).

The NFJA's "Open letter to Michigan’s Top Government Leaders"

Lloyd Conway's "Child Support Lock Up" (MensNewsDaily, 2/22/04)

Man Slices Own Throat In Front Of Paducah Judge (Chicago Tribune, 2/27/04)

Glenn's columns New Study Punctures Myth of Uncaring Divorced Dad (Newsday, 6/23/03), American Fathers Get a Bad Rap (Cybercast News Service, 6/17/02), and Divorced from Reality on Child Support (Newark Star-Ledger, 9/6/02). The latter was co-authored by Thompson. 
 

Listen to the show (MP3 format)