I've been blacklisted, or else I'd respond to this on the relevant thread.

When a person becomes a parent, they have an obligation to protect that child from whatevere they can.  They have a responsibility to place the welfare of that child before ANYTHING else.  ANYTHING.  Ture, there are some thing parents CANNOT protect their children from....but there are some things that ARE preventable. The security of the family unit should come before any political posturing a person wants to make. It should come before making a legal stance.  To jeopardize that is....well, it smacks of using children as pawns in a game of 'who's right'.  I'm sorry if people think that's harsh, but I think that refusing to do whatever it takes to keep your children living at home with you is a bit bloody harsh as well.

As for being guilty until proven innocent.....unfortunately, that's the way some government agencies work, CPS being one of them.   The police are the same way.  If a person is reportedly using drugs, for example, and is given the opportunity to prove their innocence by submitting a urine sample...well, why wouldn't they want to do that?  PROVE your innocence, SHOW that you have nothing to hide FIRST....worry about the legalities and constitutionality AFTER you've been exonerated.

I've had a run-in with CPS.  I pissed off some people in my old neighborhood, people who barely knew me and my family but who took umbridge to my personality and the way I do things.  They did an underhanded, cowardly thing, and they called CPS.  Numerous times.  It started with an allegation of my locking my children in the house alone, then when that was proven to be untrue they said that my house was filthy, my kids were always hungry, my son was wandering the streets with a butcher knife, attacking people, and finally that I was operating a house of prostitution, having sex with strangers in front of my kids.  In all, I believe that 5 or 6 complaints were made over the period of a year (and those are just the ones I know about).

When I was informed of these allegations, my first response was "what do I need to do to prove that this simply isn't true?".  It wasn't "this is unconstitutional and I'm not going to do it, I'm going to make a stand and prove my point at any cost"....my first concern was protecting my children and doing whatever it took to keep my family together. I let them in my home, they looked around at the unmade beds, the dishes in the sink, the laundry being folded on the couch...they spoke to my kids IN MY PRESENCE, and they went away satisfied that the allegations were completely unfounded and unsubstatiated.

To me, if a person has nothing to hide, they should first prove their innocence, THEN fight the legalities.  Keeping the family unit together and the children in the home should be the first priority, NOT proving a point. 

When it comes to fighting with DSS, it's NOT just the parent's fight.  There are kids involved, and they DESERVE to be protected.

Ww cannot protect our children from EVERYTHING.....but we have an OBLIGATION to protect them from what we can.