The Washington Post Magazine provides an extensive look at the Janet Jenkins vs. "ex-gay" former partner Lisa Miller custody battle over Miller's biological child, Isabella, born after the two women had entered into a civil union in Vermont (but never adopted by Jenkins).
Law-wise, thanks in part to Miller's legal missteps, Jenkins may have good standing to demand joint custody that would take Isabella from Virginia (where she now resides with Miller) to Vermont for extended visits. But as the Post reports:
that's only part of the larger battle. Janet's lawyers are pondering how to win a legal victory without losing in the court of public opinion. News footage of deputies wresting a sobbing Isabella from her biological mother to give to her former lesbian partner would set the cause of gay rights back just as surely as any loss in court....
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. If it does, it will be fair to ask whether Jenkins and her attorneys should be held responsible for the backlash that follows.
14 Comments for “A Win Could Be a Loss.”
posted by Carl on
Are we REALLY saying that this woman should give up seeing her child, a child she helped raise and provide for, because it might cause a backlash?
Seriously?
How can we ask a woman to give up her child just for this?
Is anyone in the public even following this case? This isn’t exactly the Baby M case. That doesn’t say much for your opinion of the public if you think they will become anti-gay because of this case.
posted by Bobby on
What is it with the sexual fluidity of lesbians? They try men, they use penis shaped dildos. Hello, do gay men use plastic vaginas? Sickening. What a disgusting case, and the sad thing is that a child is involved.
posted by Carl on
I read the full article again and honestly I have to say that Lisa, the ex-gay, sounds very disturbed and delusional. I don’t care about this supposed backlash that gays will face – reading the article, she does not sound like a fit parent.
And the article is biased anyway. They bring up John Paulk without pointing out that he was seen in a gay bar a few years after his ex-gay media blitz. They also mention this whole “backlash” thing for no real reason.
posted by Avee on
The article was not biased but extremely even-handed. Jenkins hasn’t seen the child since she was 2, and she never adopted her (although she could have moved to do so). Sorry, folks, but step parents have limited rights, and if it wasn’t for Lisa Miller’s mistake in originally choosing a lesbian activist lawyer who lied to her, this wouldn’t even be a legal issue.
posted by Carl on
Avee, the reason she hasn’t seen the child since she was 2 is because the mother refuses to let the other woman see her. And Lisa Miller had the opportunity while in court with the “lesbian activist lawyer” to say she did not agree with what her lawyer was saying. She didn’t. That’s not being lied to.
I also have a problem with this part of the article:
-News footage of deputies wresting a sobbing Isabella from her biological mother to give to her former lesbian partner would set the cause of gay rights back just as surely as any loss in court….-
So are they saying that cameras are going to be outside this woman’s home as deputies give the child to her partner? I don’t know if I buy that. And isn’t the partner only seeking extended visitation rights? It’s not like she wants sole custody and the ex-gay, unbalanced mother will never see her daughter again. She’ll still have primary custody, won’t she?
We’re supposed to object to a woman getting extended visitation rights for a child she helped raise and care for because of some backlash on a case that has as of yet not even garnered all that much public attention?
posted by Nobody on
What is it with the sexual fluidity of lesbians? They try men, they use penis shaped dildos. Hello, do gay men use plastic vaginas? Sickening. What a disgusting case, and the sad thing is that a child is involved.
Methinks you are as disgusted by sapphic sex as James is with flamboyant gay men. My what an interesting bunch. But I digress.
I think this Lisa character is as gay as gay can get, but in a divorce, all bets are off. You play any card that will reasonably work, including (and especially) those that smear the former spouse (especially in custody battles). I’m an attorney, and people are not human beings when it comes to things like divorces, custody battles, will contests, etc. They turn feral. I’ve seen worse.
posted by Mason on
I don’t know, maybe public reaction to the imagined scene of Isabella being wrested away from Lisa for a visit with Janet will be sympathy for the nightmare situations that are created because gays and their families are denied the protections of marriage. Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. But that’s what I’d point out to anyone questioning this situation.
Every day I’m thankful that my partner and I were able to adopt our daughter simultaneously in our state. We’re both on the birth certificate, and she is both of our next of kin. We still can’t get married here in Washington, but at least through her, the state recognizes us as a family.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I don’t know, maybe public reaction to the imagined scene of Isabella being wrested away from Lisa for a visit with Janet will be sympathy for the nightmare situations that are created because gays and their families are denied the protections of marriage.
Yes, because, as we know, straight married couples NEVER have fights or issues over child custody, nor do they sue in court to get it.
How gay marriage would solve this in the least, I have no idea; even straight married people have to adopt the children of their spouse that are not biologically theirs to be considered full parents, and I have yet to see a gay couple that can produce a child that is biologically both theirs.
But who cares about the particulars, when it gives leftists a chance to whine and scream how “gay marriage” would solve all the world’s problems?
posted by Fitz on
?How gay marriage would solve this in the least, I have no idea; even straight married people have to adopt the children of their spouse that are not biologically theirs to be considered full parents, and I have yet to see a gay couple that can produce a child that is biologically both theirs.?
God you?re Good? I had mentioned in a previous post how important a Childs natural parent s are in the law.
Question. If a child is not their natural mothers and fathers by right, whose is it?
Answer. Its the States child, to do with it as it pleases.
This same problem has implications for Step parents, non-adoptive parents, divorced couples, live in lovers or roommates, and so on?.
posted by Mason on
How gay marriage would solve this in the least, I have no idea…
It would help because a child born to a married couple is legally presumed to be the child of both members of the couple. Don’t believe me? Ask the thousands of dads stuck paying child support for kids their wives had with another man. So in this case, if this couple were married, when one had a child the other would also be the legal parent and this would be a simple divorce/custody dispute, not a fight over what constitutes a parent.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
It would help because a child born to a married couple is legally presumed to be the child of both members of the couple.
That is because a married straight couple is biologically capable of producing one; therefore, it is assumed that a child produced by one member of a married couple is also biologically related to the other. However, this is not automatically so; it is merely held to be so in the absence of a challenge to paternity.
Now, go ahead and make the same argument for a same-sex couple, that the child of one partner can automatically be assumed to be biologically the child of the other partner.
Don’t believe me? Ask the thousands of dads stuck paying child support for kids their wives had with another man.
That would be for one of two reasons:
1. They haven’t filed a paternity suit to undo their legal obligation to the child, which is wholly legal in several states.
2. They live in a state in which the laws facilitate paternity fraud, either by putting limits on the amount of time allowed to challenge paternity following birth or disallowing any such challenges after the man in question has acted as their father for a certain length of time – both of which essentially “stick” them with paternity and prevent them from challenging it.
In short, marriage does not automatically make one a parent of a child; the assumption that a child is the product of individuals who happen to be married to each other does, in the absence of any challenge or evidence to the contrary. Legal parenthood comes first through biology and second through adoption, which requires the nullification of the biological parent(s) rights.
Now, in order for your belief to come true, we essentially have to remove the law that gives any rights to biological parents or relatives and replace it with marriage law — as in, parents who are not married to each other have no rights to their children, and individuals who are married to each other automatically have rights to whatever child they want to designate as theirs.
Or we could simply have a reality check and state publicly that gay marriage would NOT remove the requirement that, in order to exercise parental rights over a child to which you are not biologically related requires you to adopt that child.
posted by Randy on
Avee: if it wasn’t for Lisa Miller’s mistake in originally choosing a lesbian activist lawyer who lied to her, this wouldn’t even be a legal issue.”
That helped, of course, but the real legal issue here is that the civil union took place in Vermont, and so Vermont is the state that can decide child custody, not Virginia. This was the decision of the Vt. courts, AND the Virginia Court of Appeals.
Furthermore, Lisa hurt her case herself by denying her ex the right to visit the child. She had a legitimate right to visit, but Lisa refused to allow her any access. This violated the terms of the custody agreement, and courts generally don’t like to see that.
What Lisa did was forum shopping — seeking a favorable venue to get what she wants. Our federal court system disapproves of forum shopping, and in the instance of child custody cases, specifically forbids it.
According to the article, Lisa’s attorneys vow to appeal to the US Supreme Court, but I can’t see them agreeing to hear it. The law is settled, and there is no conflict in laws. So far, Virginia and Vermont are actually in agreement on this. So in the end, there will likely be some form of joint custody awarded to both parties.
I agree, that Lisa sounds a little unhinged, but that’s of no matter to anyone.
posted by Randy on
The bigger danger, as I see it, is that Lisa will lose the court battle, and then take her daughter and hide to prevent the ex from ever seeing her again.
Whatever happens, we can all agree that the ex-gay movement has had a detrimental effect on the whole situation.
posted by Novaseeker on
The main issue is that Lisa herself sought to get a divorce in the Vermont courts, and then decided to “opt out” of the rulings of such courts by moving to Virgnia. There’s a federal law that prevents people from doing that, and it’s the law that was cited by the Virginia appellate court. That’s really all this case is about. The rest of it is politically-motivated hoo-hah manufactured by the ex-gay movement, when in reality this is a fairly simple case under the federal statute.
Honestly Lisa is likely going to lose, and to be honest, she’s going to suffer in the end for her defiance of Vermont’s rulings for years.