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To the Editor:
I recently attended my daughter’s freshman orientation at Richard Stockton College. The keynote speaker was making the point that college freshman should leave any emotional baggage that they may have accumulated in life behind. The students should be looking forward toward their future and too much focus on small issues of the past would hamper their chances at success.
As he spoke, he asked the students to look around the room. He then noted that anyone coming from a family with a loving mother and father who are in love with each other are a part of a very small minority, and as such chances for success were great.
I looked at my daughter and felt proud that the tremendous efforts my wife and I have made over the last 20 years were being acknowledged. The statement did, however, point out the sad reality that the world we live in has changed from the one we grew up in.
I mention this only as it might apply to your recent story about Jerry and Debbie Hall. As is the case with many in our community, my wife and I have benefited from our relationship with the Halls and have known them as long as we have known each other. One would be hard pressed to find better partners, better parents or better citizens. Being familiar with the Halls (Jerry) and the McPhersons (Debbie), I can say that Jerry and Debbie come from good stock and their family values are inherent in everything they do for each other and their children. They have both worked harder then most to provide a good environment for their children, and their children have responded by growing happy, healthy and socially normal adolescents.
It’s unfortunate that Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) entered their lives at a time when they were making adjustments so often necessary in a long-term relationship like marriage. It’s more unfortunate that DYFS made so many off-the-cuff value judgments about their family at this critical time.
Fortunately, Jerry and Debbie had enough invested in their relationship to stay focused on the importance of the issue: preservation of the family unit and a happy healthy future for themselves and their children.
DYFS, on the other hand, took a pro-active stance, embellished the facts and began their immediate assault on the family. An organization that was originally set up to protect children from growing up in a bad environment has morphed its mission into making value judgments about the American family and what they think it should be. Left to DYFS, I firmly believe the American family would be extinct. This self-perpetuating socialist bureaucracy -DYFS- has run afoul of the principles that make this nation the greatest on Earth. It’s truly hard to believe this can happen in America, as Jerry and Debbie have stated.
The family is the primary vehicle for transferring values from one generation to the next. The family has changed in our nation’s history. There are good parents and good stepparents making adjustments on a daily basis to accomplish the transfer of values successfully. My wife and I struggle daily to instill our values in our teenagers. It’s a daunting task but the alternative is unacceptable. Jerry and Debbie are spending their life savings defending their rights to do the same thing and they too find the alternative unacceptable.
There are many organizations that help the family unit in the process of transferring values and they are very popular. The most prominent, of course, is religion. Church is an important partner and is an avenue may successful families seek out to ensure that children develop character values. The public schools, on the hand, due to their strict interpretation of the separation of the church and state, are to remain value neutral. Thus they are about the poorest choice parents can make when they want to accomplish this task. Yet public schools are primary partner at the point of interdiction for organizations like DYFS. Value neutral institutions are not an acceptable alternative to loving parents and the day has come when the general public must find this unacceptable, lest they give up their most precious right-to raise their children to become good citizens.
To Jerry, Debbie and the kids, my family would like to thank you for fighting the good fight. You’re spending your life savings defending what we consider to be our most sacred task in life; to ensure that for generations to come there will be citizens of character with the values necessary to ensure the survival of this great nation. We wish we could help you financially but we are too charged with putting food in the refrigerator.
To people who know Jerry, Debbie and the family, don’t just watch this unfold. Support your friends every step of the way. They are under siege and to allow this to continue is irresponsible. Remember the times the Halls were there for you. It’s payback time. Debbie may have watched your kids, as she did ours. Jerry may have put out a fire in your house, or cut down a tree, or put time in your bathroom or helped you put an addition on. This is no time to look away.
To people who don’t know the Halls, this could be you. If any of you were to objectively ask the children of these two parents, they would tell you that they would change little in their lives. We don't look forward to participating in a society that would take them from either their mother, their father or both.
In closing, I would ask all who have read this letter to ask yourself one question: Who will repay the Halls for all the aggravation and money they have spent trying to preserve what is the average American family? The answer is nobody.
These are our tax dollars at work. The money comes from your tax dollars, my tax dollars and the Hall’s tax dollars, all spent on a self-fulfilling bureaucracy that knows what is right for you and your family. Perhaps these tax dollars would have been better spent policing the activities of DYFS.
This is a prime example of activism and if you think you are immune to it, think again.
Brian Duffy
Cape May Court House
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