I'll give you an example of what would happen in a ficticious world without BIC:
Let's say your x, who has moved out of the state, is continuing to move over and over again. She moves around so often that your child is crying to you for help and you file for custody reversal. When the judge says the mother has every right to move all she wants, you tell the judge "but my daughter is failing her classes because she keeps starting over in a new school."
The judge responds that you have no right to present your concerns about your child and that the court refuses to consider the needs of your child, no matter how bad. "Did the mother physically abuse your daughter?" You say "Well, no, but my daughter is severely depressed because every time she moves she loses her friends." The judge: "Enough! It doesn't matter. You have NO right to ask us to think about your child! The law says that the primary parent prevails."
You would be outraged.
Another example: Let's say your child was being hidden from you by your x. Let's say you wanted contact with her and the mother wanted you to NOT have contact. The judge can NOT help you because the only existing laws (after taking away your child's rights, but leaving the CP doctrine intact) are laws giving the CP primacy in any dispute. You can NOT interfere with your x's rights in any way and the fact that it is clear that this hurts the child doesn't matter.
It's this simple: You're a NCP. You lose.
Those examples may sound familiar to you, because I was using you as an example. Please don't think that your gender, the status quo and your custodial status had nothing to do with so many bad court decisions. It sure didn't have anything to do with the child's interests.
It comes down to understanding the root of the problem. The real problem is not the fact that the courts are concerned about children. The real problem is a government program that is DESIGNED to treat two equal parents unfairly. It is designed to be so one-sided that conflict is unavoidable. It intentionally supports the parent who already has the upper hand, rather than trying to even things out.
The whole mentality of sole custody superiority is what we are up against. But after you get shafted by the judge, they aren't going to say they reamed you because you are male, or because you are a NCP. They won't say they shafted you because they don't like the way you talk or because you couldn't afford a lawyer or because they always dump on you and it is getting to be a habit. The fact that they won't tell you the REAL reason you lost doesn't change the truth.
And don't think that if you take away the child's interests principle that the courts will suddenly make better decisions and treat NCP's fairly. Don't think that by taking away one convenient excuse they won't find another. A judge isn't even required to GIVE a reason for finding against you. They need only to raise and lower a gavel. So you accomplish NOTHING by removing a parent's right to help their child.
Clark: "How many times on this board have we heard that a divorcing couple presented an agreed to custody/visitation plan to the court and a judge denied it?"
That is pretty rare, although it happened to me. It certainly didn't happen to me because of the child's best interests principle! They didn't even mention the child. Our schedule was forced on us because of the CP doctrine. Our county court system strongly encourages the standard parenting schedule (CP doctrine) and that is why they forced it on us.
"How many times have we heard an agreed to support arrangement or amount agreed to and the judge changed it?"
In our state it is determined by state guidelines and is pretty inflexible, so you are right about a diminished parental rights here, but it isn't the children's interests principle to blame.
Clark: "Judges interfere for no good reason other than they can and they do."
Exactly! No reason is needed. The court can do whatever they want with or without BIC or any other consideration out there, unless a law is made to force their hand. This is exactly why we should stop trying to LOOSEN controls on courts by removing a needed requirement (our children's interests). Instead we need to make much more structured laws guiding the court to better custody determinations.
Clark: "Bad judges are becomming the rule rather than the exception and BIC is the route of the problem."
So they would be GOOD judges if it were ownership of the house we were fighting over? These SAME judges would suddenly be great jurists if we could just remove that one big-bad phrase from state laws. That's bull, Clark, and you know it.
One of your biggest mistakes is that you presume that there is some vast conspiracy of "corrupt" judges. Personally, I think it is more of a systemic failure and the inundation of the CP doctrine (which is what we should REALLY be fighting). There are good and bad judges, Clark. If you took away our BIC rights then even the GOOD judges couldn't help us.
Judges have too much sweeping power of discretion and that isn't going to change by giving them an even MORE vague freehand - taking away the only part of the law that gives NCP's any hope of countering the CP doctrine - and not putting anything in its place. That gives the judges even more discretion, limits NCP rights and leaves nothing but laws that give the CP domination.