Utah Family Magazine

My responses to questions sent from Utah Family Magazine. I do not know if the magazine has published them.

1. In relation to functions of the office for which you are running, what do you see as the 3 issues most pressing to families? How will you address those issues?

The state interferes with parents too often and too quickly.  I will work to make DCFS and other agencies more respectful of family ties and authority, and less likely to take children from the home or otherwise interfere with the family.  Only if a child is in real danger, the State should act

The state should try to keep families together when drugs or alcohol problems are present, emphasizing treatment over jail, which separates and destroys family units.  Addiction should be treated as a health problem, rather than a criminal one.   

The state should not impose its moral values on families which do not meet its definition of "traditional."  The state should not use mean spirited arguments to oppose the formation of family units (marriage) or to oppose adoptions into loving and supportive families.

2. How is your strategy different from those running against you?

I cannot speak for other candidates except to say that the present administration interferes far too quickly into very private family matters, and purports to impose an outdated moral code on "family values".  If I am elected, families will be more free to be who they are, and will not fear government interference.

3. What experience/qualifications do you possess that will help you in your efforts?

I have practiced law for over forty years, and have done much family law, including divorces, adoptions, juvenile court work and other work affecting families. I think I have gained a perspective that will help make some real changes in outlook in the relationship between the state and individual family units.