INTERVIEW: Actor Greg Ellis On Family Law Bias Against Fathers, Society’s Devaluation Of Men, And A Solution

Actor Greg Ellis has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, and video games over the course of his lengthy career, but his most recent project is certainly his most personal.

Following a harrowing experience in the family law system, Ellis penned a book titled, “The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law.”

I had the opportunity to speak with Ellis about the issues with the family law system, how victimhood culture has intensified the bias against fathers, his organization that seeks to help families stay out of the divorce court machine, and so much more.

You can listen to the interview via the SoundCloud embed, or read the transcript below.

Q: You wrote your book, “The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law,” after your own experience within the family law system. What is the desired outcome of your book? What do you want people to come away with, either after having read your book or in hearing you speak?

ELLIS: I think people who are going through the vicissitudes of the family law system right now, are stuck in the divorce trap, to provide them with some hope that there’s a way out and to shine a light on the cartel of family law, the corrupt system that doesn’t provide a presumption of innocence; to reform and improve the system, the one-branch of our legal system that doesn’t provide a presumption of innocence, that has no due process, where parents and partners and ex-spouses and spouses are found guilty until proven more guilty; and to maybe learn some information that might help them along the way.

Q: Why do you think the family law system is biased, as opposed to other systems?

ELLIS: How long do you have? Well, I think our family law system is antiquated and outdated. It’s a quasi-kangaroo court. It’s caught in that middle ground. And I think it’s reflective and indicative of our current cancel culture. I think there is a bias towards men and fathers, which is clear in the statistics if you look at them in family law courts, divorce courts across America. And I think that we have a system where there isn’t really an escape. The silver bullet, as I call it, in family law, which is the majority of allegations of domestic violence are false. The result, and the way it goes is the TRO or temporary restraining order, EPO, emergency protection order, are not sustained once the case moves to a permanency or evidentiary hearing, and shows that the majority of domestic violence allegations are false or unprovable.

This is an affront to the real victims of domestic violence — and this echoes and parallels, I think, what’s going on in broader society with victimhood being the new social currency, and this economy’s booming. And false allegations, once made in family law courts, because there isn’t due process, there isn’t a presumption of innocence, there is no way back from that. It is reputation savaging and destroying. And even when an individual clears their name down the line, the damage has already been done. The separation between parents and their children, it’s basically splitting, destroying families, and costing our citizenry a tremendous amount of money at the expense of the American divorce machine, which is an annual nearly $60 billion a year industry.

Q: Do you think — because obviously the system was set up prior to victimhood being currency like it is today, do you think that current culture of victimhood has just sort of amplified the problem within the family law system?

ELLIS: Yeah, I think to a large degree it has. And I think, like any law or legislative bill that’s passed, it eventually gets misinterpreted or interpreted by attorneys and they find a way around it. When I think about family law, I think about the laws that have been passed with regards to, say, shared parenting. There aren’t any apart from in Kentucky and Arkansas, 50/50 default shared parenting. Which means that if there is acrimony in a divorce proceeding, that the go-to baseline presumption is biological father and biological mother have 50/50 shared parenting time. But then the proof is on the accuser rather than the accused to actually prove why that shouldn’t be the case.

And when we look at some of the laws that have been put through, particularly by, ironically, President Biden … the Adoption and Safe Families Act is another. These, for example, the Adoption and Safe Families Act … offers financial incentives to the states that increase adoption numbers. To receive the adoption incentives and bonuses, local CPS or Child Protection Services must have more children, they must have more merchandise to sell. And funding is available when a child is placed in a foster home with strangers. And states get reimbursed $6,000 for every child that’s placed

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