Judy - thanks for trying to help your friend’s neighbor.

You cared enough to try and that is what counts.

Not only did your friend not heed your warnings but also the warnings of all the other persons posting here with 1st hand knowledge of CPS tactics.

Don’t fret. You did your best. If your “online friend” was not comfortable telling the neighbor what to do and not do, then she obviously doesn’t care as much as you had thought.

That is so many times the very heart of the issue. People just don’t want to “get involved” anymore.

The world has become a sad place at times.

Title: EPISODEseries exposing c.p.s. - Freedom FIghters For America Radio

Phone Number: (724) 444-7444 Call ID: 27564

link http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/27564

I set up a petition concerning the state of Tennessee and I am not trying to spam here (you can delete this last part if you want it off the site) but I hope you will check out the petition I set up and sign it. While you are there don’t just sign but read the horror stories. I think you will find some useful things there. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/revamp-childrens-services-in-the-state-of-tennessee

Ex-Internet porn sellers from Grand Rapids retain custody of kids

Judge rules former business has had no bearing on relationship with foster children. Birth mom plans to appeal.

By DAVID SHAFFER, Star Tribune

Last update: June 19, 2009 - 9:37 PM

A married couple from Grand Rapids, Minn., who once ran an Internet porn business can retain custody of two young children they wish to adopt, despite objections from the children’s birth mother.

In his ruling, Judge John Hawkinson said Anne Gale, who once appeared in explicit videos on her former website, and her husband, Joe, have a close, healthy and supportive relationship with the 3-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl, and that the couple’s past lifestyle does not appear to have an adverse effect on the children.

The birth mother, Rachel Voight, left the children with the Gales for adoption in 2007 at a time when Voight was in trouble for writing bad checks and smoking marijuana. Later, Voight asserted she was straightening out her life, wanted the kids back and would not have turned to the Gales if she had known of their past.

The Gales’ Internet porn business featured home-produced adult videos, stories and sex toys. The site was shut down in 2004, and the following year the Gales began offering home day care and foster care for children.
Hawkinson held a non-jury trial in January, and filed a ruling Thursday in Itasca County District Court. The ruling said the Gales’ past lifestyle was investigated in 2005 by county officials who licensed the couple to care for children.

“In light of the re-licensing of [the Gales], the testimony that the activities ceased … and the fact that the activities have been investigated, the Court finds that the prior activities do not appear to have any current adverse effect on the children,” the judge wrote.

The adoption still hasn’t been completed, and under the judge’s ruling, Voight will continue to have once-a-month supervised visits with the children. In an interview, Voight said she was disappointed in the ruling, and that she intends to appeal. The Gales and both attorneys in the case could not be reached to comment.

David Shaffer •
612-673-7090

I do not dispute any parental termination issues with regard to the children’s parents. I do dispute the treatment and prejudice that has been shown to my parents, the biological grandparents of the children as they have attempted to gain custody of their only grandchildren. I have grave concerns about our family’s experience during the insidious investigation under CHIPS to push a permanent adoption to a non-relative foster family (who have an adult child who is a registered Level Three Sex Offender) in lieu of my parents who have been faulted unduly for continuing to love a son who terminated his parental rights based on his own self-destruction – not the sexual molestation of another.

I believe my parents have been scrutinized harshly and with double standard, from their first contact with social services continuing through the legal process – a complex system very unfriendly and alienating to average citizens. While Native Americans have fought to keep their children within their tribes among family and families of color fight to maintain to keep the connection to their own ethnic roots, religion, customs and culture – Caucasian children can be removed from their biological families with disregard to “family-first.”

The process from CHIPS removal to permanent adoption is a finely tuned time machine that works towards placement based more on quick surface home studies, DHS filings, and a court calendar that does not account for human naivety of the biological family. In Minnesota, adoption cuts off the visitation rights of grandparents unless the adoption is granted to a step parent or blood relative.

I find I must be vocal and appeal to those who have the power and authority in positions that remove biological children from their families to take a deeper look at the long term damage that is far-reaching to not only our cherished children but to us, as families, as communities and as a country that alleges to be one of the most advanced super nations. We are no longer a family-friendly nation.

More families, like ours are experiencing the backlash of division based on an idealized mindset of some social worker or guardian ad-litem’s loose interpretation of what an “American” family should be. I ask that I not be forgotten as my parent’s child and a loving aunt in this process. I verify that my parents are the family that will provide what these children need: safety, physical and emotional security, religion, continuity and a loving extended family that are the biological strength and connection to their little souls.

No one is protecting children when they are taken from families who are their history!

LaNaya Allen
Itasca County
Minnesota