John Washington III Calls Georgia's Child Support Rules a 'Racket': Support Owed at Once, a Father's Rights Only After Another Court Process

John Washington III turned his attention to Georgia on Sunday, arguing that the state's child support and custody rules treat unmarried fathers as fathers for one purpose and strangers for another. He wrote that he had been researching Georgia's child support laws and that what he found was, in his word, ridiculous: a man who has a child with a woman he is not married to can be legally required to pay child support, but that obligation does not automatically give him the legal right to custody or visitation with his own child.

The gap, as John Washington III described it, survives every ordinary proof of fatherhood. Even if a man signs the birth certificate, even if DNA proves he is the biological father, and even if he is paying child support, he generally must still go through another legal process, called legitimation, before he can seek enforceable custody or visitation rights, he wrote. "The government can recognize you as a father when it's time to collect child support, but when it comes to having legal rights to raise your own child, suddenly you're required to go through another government process," he wrote. "I CALL THAT A RACKET." He called the arrangement "government overreach, plain and simple."

He was explicit about what he is not arguing. "I'm not saying fathers shouldn't financially support their children," he wrote, asking why a government that can legally establish a man as a father for financial obligations requires that same father to clear additional legal hoops to establish his standing to seek parenting rights. "FATHERHOOD SHOULD NOT BE DETERMINED BY A MARRIAGE LICENSE," he wrote. The position, he said, is not about taking rights away from mothers; it is about recognizing the importance of both parents in a child's life and protecting responsible fathers from unnecessary legal barriers. He acknowledged that courts have a responsibility to protect children from abuse and dangerous situations, while arguing that simply being unmarried should not automatically put a father at a legal disadvantage. Georgia, he said, is one example of why the laws state governments have created across the country need to be examined.