Focusing on fathers’ rights, a bill known as “The Good Dad Act” was unanimously passed by the Florida House and Senate and is now a law.
Unmarried fathers who have established they are the biological father are granted the same rights and duties as the mother.
Before voting in favor, Miami Democratic State Rep. Kevin Chambliss stated, “It’s about time that we realize the reality of the family makeup in American society and the fact that there are a lot of fathers who are not married, or are no longer married to the mothers of their children, and they are still great fathers.”
“Both parents are the natural guardians of the child, and both have the same rights and responsibilities as parents that a married parent would have,” Republican State Senator Clay Yarborough of Jacksonville stated in an April Senate session.
The Senate bill was sponsored by Yarborough.
“It’s just good common sense, and we want dads to be involved in their kids’ lives,” Yarborough said, noting that the bill was a bipartisan effort.
“The overall goal is we don’t want there to be any barriers or impediments to dads who want to be involved in the lives of their sons or daughters, to have either extra legal hurdles they have to go through or try to figure out what could be an ambiguous system to go through.”
Last week, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law, and it will go into effect on July 1.