On June 18, 2010, Illinois Fathers hosted their second annual Fatherless Day rally in Springfield. We were honored to have Dr. Stephen Baskerville as our keynote speaker and we are please to have seen representation from the Children’s Rights Council of Illinois, and Fathers-4-Justice. Following the speeches we moved into the Rotunda of the Capital and continued with our keynote speaker and a follow on Candidates Forum where two candidates for public office came out to outline their platform’s stance on shared parenting and the involvement of both parents in their children’s lives. We are pleased to announce that our efforts were very successful and we appreciate everyone’s support in this event!
Tim Brown – President, Illinois Fathers
Tim Brown, the Master of Ceremonies at this year’s event, and current president of Illinois Fathers gives the overview of how Illinois Fathers did this year and also discusses some of the goals an objectives of the year ahead. Topics discussed include the ongoing fundraiser, the shared parenting petition, and the bill we spoke against this year. And yes, you heard him right. When we get 100 people to attend an event. We’ll start work on trying to get shared parenting passed in Illinois. But it takes ALL of us to make it happen.
David Ihben – Father
David Ihben, a father who went through the family court system in Tazewell County over many years voices his concerns about the practices in our family court system from a first person perspective. David has spent weeks at a time through the dead of winter standing outside the Tazewell County Courthouse in support of shared parenting. Forced to represent himself as Pro-Se due to a lack of resources to provide for a solid defense, David has had many bumps and bruises in the family court system in his attempts to secure shared parenting of his child. Unfortunately, David’s scenario is not uncommon. For those non-custodial parents who choose to continue to fight to be involved in their children’s lives, they can find themselves completely drained of financial resources facing a legal system that is difficult to understand, often times hypocritical, and many times disappointing. Years of continued litigation in their efforts to spend decent time with their children oftentimes result in bitterness for the litigant and ultimately the lost childhood of their children.
Mike Dockarty – Executive Director of Children’s Rights Council of Illinois
As executive director of the Children’s Rights Council of Illinois, Mike Dockarty has been vital to public outreach amongst the professionals working in the divorce industry, through decades of research, analysis, and personal interviews, CRC-IL has built up a formidable analysis of the current standing of the family court structure in Illinois and its impact on the society as a whole. Fathers as Uncles? And we wonder where “irresponsible” fathers come from?
Tony Taylor
The incomparable Captain Tony Taylor gives us a scathing review of the lessons we must teach our younger generation when it comes to marriage and divorce. He gives us a further breakdown of how our government officials hold accountability in the existing family court system. He speaks of the importance of teaching our children to avoid marriage and to avoid procreation due to the hazards that exist in family courts today. This concept is referred to as a Marriage Strike and has been discussed in a variety of groups around the nation. While somewhat extreme in its implementation, it does underscore the steps that need to be taken in order to protect oneself from becoming a litigant in family court. Through effective family court reform, by allowing parents to remain engaged in their children’s lives, there would be no need for such drastic ideas and actions.

Carrie Adams – Mother
It is with great dismay that we must report that the video of Ms. Carrie Adams speech did not come out. Due to the rising temperatures, we lost video during her speech and the file was corrupted. However, Ms. Adams, who’s heart knows no bounds, spoke about how women who are stuck as non-custodial parents feel the same wrath as those fathers that we focused on during this year’s event. Ms. Adams is herself a mother of two, who she hasn’t seen in about 6 years. On the tail end of a parental alienation front, Ms. Adam’s children are now becoming adults, and she has effectively lost their teenage years. Her speech this year was one that left tears in the eyes of the audience. Faced with a degenerative and ultimately fatal disease, Ms. Adams longs for nothing more than to see her kids again. And we hope that she may. Thank you Carrie for coming out and sharing your story with us.
Rev Kurt Simon
Originally slotted to give our opening invocation, Rev Simon gave us an inspirational speech and an opening prayer on the second half of our ceremony. This is the second year Rev Simon has been a part of fatherless day. Rev Simon spoke of how as a movement we can know that we are not alone. Often times parents who go through divorce feel exactly that way. He also spoke of anger and it’s implications on family law. How any expression of anger turns courts against fathers. And he spoke of the issues he’s faced through his own divorce process. He shows that no person, not even ministers are exempt from the problems that exist in family court. Even with evidence backing him from board certified doctors supporting him as a parent, it mattered not. Rev Simon speaks at how this blind treatment invokes anger and how that anger should instead be focused for good, for positive change, for motivation to engage in working for the movement. A call for responsible civil disobedience, for speaking out, and for getting engaged. Rev Simon then lead us in a prayer…
Ian Mitchell – Board Member, Illinois Fathers
One of the original co-founders of Illinois Fathers, Ian helped start Illinois Fathers by posting to an Internet Forum in 2008 that he was going to Springfield and to ask who on the Internet was coming with. This year he focused on the value of the non-custodial parent and how that value translates into the issues we face today. Key concerns raised included the mass exploitation of family courts under the guise of domestic violence, the implications it has on legitimate cases of domestic violence and how the legislation being considered this year adversely impacts non-custodial parents.
Keynote: Dr. Stephen Baskerville
Stephen Baskerville is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Patrick Henry College and past president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. He is a Fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and for many years taught political science at Howard University and Palacky University in the Czech Republic. His second book, Taken Into Custody: The War against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family, was published in October 2007 by Cumberland House Publishing.
Baskerville is widely recognized as “the leading authority” (in the words of columnist Paul Craig Roberts) on the politics of divorce, custody, and family courts. His writings on family and fatherhood issues have appeared in leading national and international publications, both popular and scholarly: the Washington Post, Washington Times, Independent Review, Salisbury Review, Society, Chronicles, Political Science and Politics, The American Conservative, Human Events, Women’s Quarterly, Catholic World Report, Crisis magazine, Insight magazine, World Net Daily, Whistleblower magazine, The Family in America, Family Policy Review, American Spectator, The Spectator, American Enterprise magazine, National Review, Liberty magazine, the Sunday Independent, LewRockwell.com, New Presence, MovieGuide.com, and others. His work has also been published by major public policy “think tanks,” including the National Center for Policy Analysis, Institute for Policy Innovation, Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, and the Heartland Institute.