You will see that I have posted, on a new thread, a lecture given by the then head of the family division in England, one Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. I have also posted her age and the ages of her colleagues for you to consider (though, quite understandably you may not think it relevent to consider the average age of the judges - I just thought it might reflect upon their ability to contemplate change, that's all).
I have done all this because I think her article explains alot about the difficulties you are likely to face in promoting your views on - "The reasonable preference of the child" and hence your chance of success.
We are fairly close on this topic as you know - I would assume the child is expressing views about contact with their parent in line with the other parent's views unless proven to be otherwise. This means that their views could be assessed in the light of the influence they have been placed under to reject the parent they say they don't wish to see anymore (so showing up any alienating influence as you rightly say happens so much nowadays).
If the child was genuinely giving their own views, wholly unaffected by the other parent and they simply cannot stand the one they wish to reject, then the courts can consider their views independently. This should be a rare event however.
Another way it could be viewed by the courts is as "all part of growing up" to hate one or other of your parents at some stage in your early life. Then hopefully the parent-child relationship could be saved or salvaged with a bit of coaxing.
To move on I think I once asked you whether you might be able to try making some kind of justification for "Equal Parenting" beyond the best interests of the child, or an alternative justification. It is really an attempt to test you again, and check if you could do such a thing, even as an intellectual exercise.
I raise this idea now probably because I notice you appreciated this thread so much, and applauded it so much I think, because it started by stating an aim of achieving what was ultimately good for children.
Can any proposals for family law only be based on this idea - that the system must lead to whatever our society or our leader believe is going to be the best for children? You would say yes straight away - I hardly need to ask you really, and you probably believe only a mad man would think otherwise.
I always say I want what is best for children (and I certainly wish no child any harm).
However, to repeat my position (even though it isn't necessary for you) I believe it is a bad thing to base our Family law on that premise (BIC) where the parents are decent people, for all the reasons I've given you before.
I have just thought of one example where we might agree and that is when a child rejects a parent who has been very good to them (I could be speaking of myself here!!). That child needs to be told that they should be showing more respect to the said parent. It is all rapped up with the alienation topic I know, so it is usually more complicated than I have described here, when good/decent parents get rejected.
To return to my comment about all proposals for family law having to produce an outcome that is ultimately best for children (albeit that I believe moving away from the BIC test is the only way to achieve this in many cases).
Maybe this is the answer:-
Set up an experiment - in one state of the US try framing a family law something along the lines Jim wishes (or even I wish, reducing the BIC doctrine, replacing it with "best interests of the child priority" or whatever) and then see what happens. Do children thrive better? Do the numbers losing contact with their parents decrease? Do they do better at school (...and so on)?
Maybe you've made a "social engineer" of me after all!
Good luck disentangling this mass of conflicting ideas.
All the best, Graham