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Lesbian Custody Case Controversy
Filed under: In The News
Lisa Miller answers questions about her custody battle during a news conference following arguments for her case before the court at the State Capitol in Richmond, Va., on April 17, 2008. Credit: Lisa Billings, AP
A Vermont judge recently ordered Lisa Miller of Virginia to relinquish custody of her 7-year-old daughter, Isabella, to her former partner, Janet Jenkins, because Miller had refused to abide by court-ordered visitations. On January 1, 2010, Miller officially violated the court order to transfer custody, according to the AP.
A child is caught in the middle of a custody case. Sad, perhaps, but not unusual. However, this particular case is newsworthy not only because both of the parents are women, but because one of those women appears to have kidnapped her child.
Back in 2000, Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins entered into a civil union in Vermont, according to ABC News. Miller was impregnated via artificial insemination and gave birth to Isabella. Then Miller and Jenkins broke up, with Miller taking Isabella to Virginia, renouncing her lesbianism and embracing evangelical Christianity, according to ABC.
This case has been going on for years, and Miller's cause has been taken up by certain anti-gay marriage groups and individuals. In October of 2008, Miller gave an interview to LifeSiteNews.com, in which she discusses "how she became entangled in the lesbian lifestyle, after mental health workers convinced her she was a lesbian."
On a Facebook group called "Only One Mommy: The Story of Lisa and Isabella Miller," a user wrote the following: "Our sister in the Lord needs the parts of the body of Christ to stand up and defend her and that is exactly what we are going to do. This is much bigger than Isabella and her Mother." Someone replied with, "This issue is the promotion of gay rights and nothing else. Lisa and her child are nothing but victims in this case." And the Web site for the Protect Isabella Coalition asks questions that go beyond the immediate issues of the Miller-Jenkins case, such as "Why are Virginia's marriage laws and DOMA not working?"
Web publications such as TruthWinsOut and LezGetReal have countered with their own information campaign, including reprinting now-deleted blog entries from Miller's supporters. "'Ex-Gay' Mother's Supporters Encourage Kidnap" resurrects a blog entry written by Debbie Thurman, founder of a group called The Formers, in which Thurman wrote that "Lisa and Isabella Miller are nowhere to be found, just days before the court-mandated transfer of custody of 7-year-old Isabella to Janet Jenkins. Ya reckon?" Thurman added that "Lisa [Miller] obeyed God in seeking to raise Isabella in the Christian faith." Timothy Kincaid of the site Box Turtle Bulletin published a piece titled "Debbie Thurman: the source of Lisa's last communication" which points out that Thurman may have been the last person to speak with Lisa Miller, based on the fact that Thurman posted a message on Facebook titled "A Note from Lisa", something that LifeSiteNews refers to as "Miller's last public communication." Thurman took down her Web sites on Jan. 2, 2010, writing that "God is urging me to take a leave of absence from my ministry via the Formers."
Despite protestations from Miller's supporters, there appears to be no legal basis for her refusal to obey the court order. In an email interview with ParentDish, New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard told us that "the law governing custody and visitation rights in the Miller-Jenkins case will be entirely Vermont law, as that is where the parties were residing with their child while they were civil union partners." He added that in his understanding of this case, the judge's "recent decision to change custody from Ms. Miller to Ms. Jenkins was based on the failure of Ms. Miller to comply with the visitation orders that were lawfully issued by the Vermont court. That is a well-established ground for changing custody if both parents are deemed 'fit' by the court," which is the case here.
The issues in the Miller-Jenkins case are not new. The 1991 Allison D. v. Virginia M. case in New York State "denied the nonbiological mother's claim, holding that she was not a parent within the meaning of the state's visitation statute because she was neither a biological nor an adoptive parent," according to Meredith Rosenthal, an attorney with the firm Friedman & Atherton LLP in Boston who also lectures on family law at New England Law/Boston, who answered questions from ParentDish via email. Rosenthal told us that there have been other cases since that time that took the opposite view, such as the 2005 case Jones v. Boring in Pennsylvania. "Even though the scales of justice are often weighted more heavily in favor of the biological parent, there are cases to be found in which custody is awarded to the other parent under a variety of circumstances," she said via email.
A January 6, 2010 report from Virginia television station WHSV says that Miller may go to jail when she is found. The station asks that anyone who knows where Miler and Isabella are hiding should contact the Center for Missing and Exploited Children by calling 800-843-5678.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
1-18-2010 @ 11:26AM
SKL said...First, I think the main reason this has been posted here is because of the Christianity part of the story. There are many, many custody cases involving gay parents, parents who have renounced the gay lifestyle, and parents who have adopted the gay lifestyle after first being in a heterosexual marriage that produced a child. The only thing new here is the Evangelical Christian part of it. Surely this was well-strategized to get lots of radical comments from both sides of the issue.
Second, the key questions are the legal ones:
1) Does the relevant state law recognize the marriage, and does it treat both ex-partners as legal parents? If not, then the non-biological parent has no custody rights unless she legally adopted the child.
2) The article says that it's normal for parents to lose custody if they don't abide by the visitation requirements. Is this really true? I have heard of many, many heterosexual moms who didn't abide by the custody rule, but didn't lose the child as a result. I don't believe for one minute that that is a typical result in any state. Hence it seems unfair to strip this mom of custody for that reason alone.
3) It's wrong for the mom to deny visitation if the court (after all appeals) required it. The remedy, however, should be no different than what happens in typical heterosexual divorce/custody cases. Taking a child from the parent she has always lived with is rarely a good thing. Regardless of the whole gay / religion fight at the adult level, it's the child's best interests that need to be addressed.
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1-18-2010 @ 1:46PM
Jennie said...From the photos I've seen and the stories I've read, I cannot believe for a minute that this child would want to leave her mom. Forcing her to do so would be severely punishing an innocent person, with serious psychological ramifications that could last the rest of her life. How can that possibly be justified by any law?
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1-18-2010 @ 2:14PM
Jim said...This could have been prevented. If same sex couples wish to have children, they adopt. If they are females and they choose artificial insemination as this couple did, the partner who is not carrying the child NEEDS to legally adopt him/her once he/she is born.
It all really comes down to legality. Principle and Religion have nothing to do with this story!
Reply
1-18-2010 @ 2:21PM
Jim said...@SKL
1. Agreed.
2. The only time a child is taken away, as reported in the story, for a parent not abiding with visitation orders, is when the other parent is "fit". I would venture to say that the mothers you heard of whom do not comply also have exes who are NOT fit. Either way, it is an uphill battle to take a child away.
3. Sadly you are right. There is a mother who, even though she was neither the biological mother or an adopted one, has lost a daughter. I am sure that when this couple decided to have a child the emotions they felt were no different than when my wife and I did. The lonely mother is a victim. However that may be, she will have to be the bigger person and as such, should love the daughter enough to let her go and remain with her biological mother.
Sometimes the best interests of the a child is not the same as ours.
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1-18-2010 @ 6:01PM
K said...If you support Janet being reunited with Isabella there is another Facebook Group just for that. Search "Help Find Isabella Miller-Jenkins"
Thank you.
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1-19-2010 @ 11:27AM
Dana said...Two points: The evangelical angle is not new to this case. Liberty Counsel, the conservative Christian legal advocacy group supporting Miller, has been involved in a number of such custody cases, as has the similar Alliance Defense Fund.
Also, note that one of the reasons Jenkins was given custody is that she has stated she is willing to allow Miller to continue visitation. Miller is not willing to do the same for Jenkins. Judge Walker therefore felt that giving Jenkins primary custody was the only way for the girl to continue a relationship with both of her mothers. His decision was not a ruling to keep the girl from either one of her mothers entirely.
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1-24-2010 @ 9:26PM
Sylvia said...The ex-gay community is about hope and change. Find out more about us at http://pfox.org_about_us.html
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