Guest Opinion: Children in 'Gay Marriage' Crosshairs

Catholic online ^ | 7/3/08 | J. Matt Barber

[tcg]

Virginia resident Lisa Miller, mother of 6-year-old Isabella Miller, was involved in homosexuality for a short time. Thankfully, she found freedom from the destructive "gay" lifestyle – as so many others have done –through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and, along with Isabella, is now a Christian.

For the past five years or so, Lisa and Isabella have been trying to live their lives in peace at home in Virginia. But unfortunately, they've been unable to do so, as Lisa's dark past has come back to haunt them.

They've been the target of a vicious legal attack by militant homosexual activists that places Vermont's civil union laws ("gay marriage" by another name) directly at odds with the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, Virginia's Marriage Affirmation Act and the Virginia Constitution.

Outrageously, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in March that Lisa must share custody of her own daughter with Janet Jenkins, a woman who was, for a brief time, Lisa's lesbian "civil partner."

Jenkins is entirely unrelated to Isabella and, for the most part, is a total stranger to the little girl. Although Jenkins is neither a biological parent nor an adoptive parent, Vermont's highest court determined that – because of a brief "civil union" from a weekend jaunt to Vermont back in 2000 – Jenkins, who hadn't seen Isabella since she was little over a year old, must be granted "parental" rights and visitation.

Little Isabella – who is both terrified by this stranger and understandably confused by her bizarre lifestyle – has suffered tremendous emotional trauma as a result. There are even concerns about her physical safety.

[tcg]

So-called same-sex "parenting" willfully deprives a child of his or her mother or father and is fundamentally immoral"

[docbnj]

How can a VT court have jurisdiction over someone living in VA?

I think that they should not worry, and should just ignore the VT court, and stay out of that state.

[rawhide]

I agree, ignore whatever comes from VT.

[keepitreal]

Unfortunately, the VA Supreme Court has ruled that the VT order is enforceable against Ms. Miller.

[yldstrk]

That is wrong.........what is the standard? in Missouri it is best interest of the child. Not that of the adult unless they are enforcing some parental rights in which case you have to be a paretn. What is the standard here?

[Pikachu_Dad]

Awww, the poor little lesbian has to share her child with her (NOT SO) life partner. Too bad.

{{ Jenkins responded: “Friends don’t pay child support for other people’s kids.”}}

While she doesn’t want to share the child, she is certainly making the other lady pay CHILD SUPPORT to her in the amount of $240/month.

Seems that the lesbian mother is the mother of all hypocrites.

Per Glenn Sacks “”I’ve noted that Miller’s actions read like a checklist of what heterosexual women sometimes do to the fathers of their children,” Glenn Sacks wrote in his series, “Lesbian Mom Describes How She Got the Dad Treatment,” “including: move the child far away; deny the noncustodial parent the opportunity to visit or co-parent the child; make an unsupported, dubious and oh-so-convenient accusation of abuse against the noncustodial parent; and pretend that the noncustodial parent is out-of-line or acting against the child’s best interests by wanting to continue the relationship with the child.””

[CindyDawg]

Is she or the Vermont court making the other woman pay?

[Arthur McGowan]

Where do these additional facts come from? Who is Glenn Sacks?

[Fast Moving Angel]

Got this in my e-mailbox this morning:

Here is a way to solve this country's political problems.

1. Allow all lesbians to marry each other immediately.
2. Allow all gay men to marry each other immediately.
3. Allow anyone, at any age, at any time to have an abortion.

In 20 years there won't be any Democrats.

[Arthur McGowan]

http://glennsacks.com/blog/index.php?tag=janet-jenkins

Seems to me that the biological mother had no business forcing the former live-in pay child support.

If she wants to be free of the “marriage,” she should pay back the child support with interest. At least.

And Matt J. Barber had no business leaving the child-support issue out of his column. It changes everything.

[Vigilanteman]

Wow! The Gay-Lesbian facists are just like the Islamofacists. Once you join the GL cult, you can never leave. Children born into the GL cult are not allowed to leave either. This isn’t only wrong, it is sick!

[buck jarret]

I don’t approve of lesbians, but still find Lisa Miller hypocritical. You cannot decently deny someone visitation after you have accepted child support from them.

[tbw2]

If there wasn’t a child support demand, would the visitation demand likely be dropped?

[keepitreal]

It looks to be that according to Ms. Miller, she didn't understand how to handle the "divorce" proceedings and got railroaded by a gay rights advocating lawyer. From a Washington Post article from 2007: ON NOVEMBER 23, 2003, Lisa filed a standardized form in Rutland County (Vt.) Family Court seeking dissolution of their civil union. She didn't retain a lawyer to help her fill out the paperwork. She didn't have money for lawyers. She was confused about which boxes on the form she was supposed to check, she later said. "I called the court clerk," she testified, "They said: 'Check off everything. That's what everybody does, and then the court will decide.' " One of the boxes on the form read: "The following are the biological or adoptive children of said civil union." Lisa wrote "Isabella Miller-Jenkins" in the box provided. She checked one box indicating that she wanted custody of Isabella. She checked another box asking the court to award Janet "suitable parent/child contact." But that wording wasn't exactly what Lisa wanted to convey, she later explained. So in the margin next to that box, Lisa wrote the word "supervised." Lisa was happy, at that point, for Janet to visit with Isabella, she recalled; but she expected, as Isabella's biological mother, to maintain ultimate parental authority over who saw her daughter and under what circumstances. Given that expectation and hope, filling out the form may have been the worst thing she could have done. Had Lisa waited a few more months before filing to dissolve her civil union, Isabella would have been considered a legal resident of Virginia; the state of Vermont might have had little say over her future. In early 2004, seven weeks after Lisa asked the court to dissolve their union, Janet filed a counterclaim seeking custody of Isabella for herself and visitation for Lisa. She felt like Isabella was as much her daughter as she was Lisa's, she said. (snip) Lisa hired Linda Reis, a family law attorney in Rutland County. Reis notified Judge William Cohen that they planned to argue that Janet was not Isabella's legal parent. In the meantime, Reis and Janet's attorney tried to work out a visitation schedule. "It was all kind of mired," Reis recalled. After a few months, Lisa, frustrated by the case's slow pace, decided to change lawyers. It was a decision that would change the course of the case -- and perhaps her life. As her next court date loomed, Lisa worked her way through the Rutland County Yellow Pages and searched the Internet for a new lawyer. Eventually, she contacted Schoenberg & Associates and was steered to the firm's expert in civil union law, Deborah Lashman. Lashman is a central figure in the history of legal rights for gay parents in Vermont. In a landmark 1993 case, Lashman had tried, unsuccessfully at first, to adopt the biological children of her longtime lesbian partner, Jane Van Buren. Van Buren had conceived the children through artificial insemination; she and Lashman were raising them together. A probate judge had ruled that Lashman could not adopt the children because she and Van Buren were not married, an option not available to them under Vermont law. The women appealed. In the nation's first appellate-level ruling in such a case, the Vermont Supreme Court said that Lashman could adopt her partner's biological children. Lashman later became an outspoken board member of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, which supports same-sex marriage. Lisa didn't know any of that when she hired Lashman, she later said. She maxed out new credit cards and borrowed money from her father to send Lashman the $3,000 retainer she requested. Then, three days before her next court hearing, Lisa phoned Lashman. "She told me at that point she did not really have time to talk, that I needed to meet her at the courthouse on Monday," Lisa testified. Thirty minutes before the hearing, Lisa met Lashman for the first time in the courthouse hallway. Lisa's new lawyer "told me that she felt that this was a custody case and that we needed to proceed as such," Lisa later testified. "I said, 'No. I don't even feel that she's a parent, so why should she even have visitation or custody.' She said, 'The judge isn't going to go for that,' and I needed . . . to come up with some kind of [visitation] schedule. I said, 'No, I don't agree with it.' And she said, 'You have to get used to the fact that Janet is a parent.' And I said, 'No, I don't.' And then we were called into the courtroom." According to a transcript of the hearing, Judge Cohen began by saying, "The last time we were in court, when Ms. Reis was representing the plaintiff, there was an issue at that time involving, I believe it was parentage and civil unions and who the parent would be. I understand that there's been a change in tactics, or a change in course, I guess, is a better word." "Well, I have a different interpretation of the law than Ms. Reis," Lashman told the judge. "My reading of Vermont law is . . . both these folks are legal parents of Isabella." "Presumed," the judge said. "Presumed because she was born during the course of the civil union," Lashman said. "Right," the judge said. "So I don't think that's an issue at this point," Lashman said. "That was an issue she raised," the judge noted. "Your client's waiving that issue now?" "She is, your honor," Lashman said. Lashman later said in an interview that Lisa knowingly waived her right that day to contest that Janet was Lisa's mom. Lisa, however, disputes that. Lisa later said she was nervous and confused. During a break in the hearing, Lisa later recalled under oath, she asked Lashman: " 'What just went on?' . . . She stopped me and said, 'It is my policy not to discuss anything in the courtroom at break, and I won't discuss it with you until afterwards.' " After the hearing, Lisa tried again to discuss the matter, but Lashman rebuffed her, Lisa testified. Lashman disputed that, later testifying that Lisa didn't question her representation until the following month. On April 23, Lisa faxed Lashman a letter stating that she did not agree that Janet was Isabella's legal parent and that she believed Lashman had improperly waived her right to challenge Janet's parentage, Lisa later recalled under oath. Lisa asked Lashman to go back to the court and undo the damage by putting the issue of parentage "back on the table," she later testified. After Lisa sent the fax, she and Lashman spoke on the phone, both testified. Lisa's attorney told her that if she was going to insist that Janet was not Isabella's parent, then Lashman was going to withdraw from the case. Lisa insisted. Lashman withdrew. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001316_pf.html From there, once there was a binding custody award from VT, the VA court ruled that it had to abide by it. Kind of enforcement of gay civil unions by the back door.

[keepitreal]

Wow.

Sorry about the previous post. All my paragraphs disappeared.

[keepitreal]

Here’s the link to the entire article. Worth a read:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001316_pf.html

[QBFimi]

ping

[Pikachu_Dad]

“Is she or the Vermont court making the other woman pay?”

Courts don’t make a demand. Someone has to REQUEST (i.e. PETITION) and PRAY for it.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Who is “Glenn Sacks”? That is what Google is for my friend.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Nevermind. I see you already did google him.

Indeed, it does change the whole completion of the case, does it not. $240/month for 17 years is about $50,000. So it is a case of ‘go away but first give me $50,000...

[Pikachu_Dad]

If there wasn’t a child support demand, would the visitation demand likely be dropped?

This case isn't going away for any reason. It will probably be bubbling in the courts for the next 10 to 17 years. I expect the parties to also move to other states and argue the case in those as well. That is because it is not about the end of a civil union. Nor is about the custody of a child. Nor is it about child support. This is a planned case about SPREADING SAME SEX MARRIAGE by using the divorce and custody laws of the other states. Look for similar cases in a state near you in the near future. This is how the elephant gets its nose under the tent. I wouldn't believe a single word either of these two lesbians said in any newspaper article or in any court hearing.