ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230097
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE, FLA.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Grandparents no longer have the right to see their grandchildren over the objections of married parents.
Grandparents in this retiree-rich state lost some of their rights Thursday when it comes to visiting their grandchildren.
Florida's Supreme Court struck down a 1993 state law that allowed courts to permit grandparents to see their grandchildren even when the children's married parents object to visitation.
In a unanimous decision, the court said the law ``infringes upon the rights of parents to raise their children free from government intervention.''
At the center of the case is 8-year-old Amber Beagle, whose parents blocked her from seeing her grandparents, who live only five miles away, south of Jacksonville.
Roy Beagle said a rift over money cut him and his wife, Sharron, from seeing their granddaughter in 1991.
``It's heart-wrenching,'' Roy Beagle said of the decision. ``It's over with, and probably we won't see her until she's grown.''
William Sheppard, the attorney representing the younger Beagle couple, said the ruling ``is an important statement that the government doesn't solve all problems.''
The decision applies only to intact families, and still allows courts to award grandparents visitation rights when one or both parents are dead, the parents are divorced or never married, or a parent has deserted the family.
Ironically, the law still allows Roy Beagle access to his only other grandchild, a 5-year-old girl his son fathered with another woman.
``Certainly, important rights have been lost,'' said Pat Slorah, founder of the Grandparents Rights Advocacy Movement. She added she was relieved the court left the rest of the law intact.
The issue of grandparental visitation is a relatively new one for courts and is being decided in a variety of ways across the nation, Justice Ben Overton wrote in the court's decision.
But the guiding principle is the right of parents to raise their children free from government paternalism. That right is specifically protected in the Florida constitution.
``We emphasize that our determination today is not a comment on the desirability of interaction between grandparents and their grandchildren,'' Overton wrote. ``We focus exclusively on whether it is proper for the government ... to force such interaction.''
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB