TWO’s Mike Airhart has written about the drama involving the unscrupulous “ex-lesbian” Lisa Miller who broke up with partner Janet Jenkins after becoming born again.
In a fit of holier-than-thou zeal, Miller went on the lam and absconded from Vermont with the child the couple were raising together after having a Civil Union. (Nothing like teaching a child the family values of honesty, integrity, honoring commitments, law and order and respect for others)
As a result of Miller’s poor parenting and criminal behavior (she was cited for contempt of court), a Vermont court transferred custody to Jenkins (after a five year legal ordeal that will surely leave emotional scars for their child Isabella) and refused a motion to delay transfer, as requested by Miller’s law team.
People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reports today that the location of Miller and 7-year-old Isabella Miller are presently “unknown”. This is highly problematic because the court order takes effect on New Year’s Day.
Right Wing Watch reports:
The whereabouts of Miller couldn’t be determined on Monday. Jenkins’ attorney, Middlebury lawyer Sarah Star, said she didn’t know where Miller was, but hoped she was still at her home in Virginia and was simply not communicating with her attorneys.
Let us hope this is the case. If Miller continues to flout the law and make a mockery of the system and her parental responsibility, there should be a heavy price to pay. No one is above the law and even fundamentalist fugitives who obstruct and abuse the rules have to suffer the consequences.
If Miller can’t obey the law, than this case should be transferred into the hands of law enforcement officials. Perhaps, some time in the clink will clear Miller’s mind and let her reflect on the miserable morals she has taught her daughter, while she has been dodging her responsibility as a parent and decent human being.
No, not “contrary to the opinions on this board.” According to fact.
I’m sorry that facts don’t jibe with your narrow worldview, but facts don’t jibe with most religious worldviews. To deny reality for that reason is a mental problem, and it’s not MY mental problem, it’s YOURS.
“Lesbian rights” have not been vindicated, I.R.M. — parental rights have been vindicated.
Isabella has a right to live her life balanced by the love of two parents, and not consumed solely by the paranoia, prejudice, and unresolved social and sexual dysfunctions of one lawbreaking parent.
Excuse me, i remember mama, but isn’t what you say your stepfather did to you exactly what Lisa, NOT Janet tried to do?? Keep her child from the other parent? Why yes it is! Lisa is the parent Isabella will grow to resent, not Janet who has always played by the rulings.
It just proves how unstable and unfit of a parent Lisa has always been. No child should be under her care.
Consequences. Choices have consequences.
Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins went to Vermont for a Civil Union. Then they went home to Virginia. They lived there a while longer, where Lisa gave birth to Isabella. Janet declined to adopt Isabella, even though the two women lived in VA, where their Civil Union was not recognized as legal or binding. The two ladies moved to Vermont, where they lived for about a year. Then Lisa and Isabella returned to VA. Lisa returned to the lifestyle she was most comfortable in, and sought to end her Civil Union with Janet.
Remember, choices have consequences. Her Civil Union was nonsense in VA. Janet couldn’t dissolve it in a VA court, where such an agreement was considered null and void anyway. Janet had to dissolve the Civil Union back in Vermont. Competent legal council would have told Janet that her emotional impulse to return to Vermont and dissolve her Civil Union with Janet was unwise. Unfortunately, Lisa went into Vermont family court for emotional reasons, not logical ones.
Dissolving a Vermont civil union is much harder than initiating one. Starry-eyed romantics beware:
“Civil unions can be dissolved in Vermont family court in exactly the same manner as divorce of married couples. But while there is no residency requirement to contract a civil union, there is a six-month residency requirement to dissolve one. An attempt of a Connecticut resident for a formal dissolution of his Vermont civil union with a New York City resident was rejected by the court of appeals on the basis of lack of jurisdiction.”
When Lisa Miller foolishly entered the Vermont Family Court to dissolve her Civil Union, she placed her custody of Isabella at risk. While Lisa and Janet’s home state of Virginia didn’t recognize Civil Unions, they did recognize child custody decisions passed down from other states. Virginia would be crazy not to do so. There are many, many inter-jurisdictional custody disputes. Cooperation between the states is absolutely necessary to prevent total anarchy in family law. With a series of short-sighted decisions, Judge Cohen created a legal quagmire that damaged all parties involved.
Who’s most at risk of losing child custody as a consequence of Judge Cohen’s decision to give custody of seven year old Isabella to Janet?
Lesbians and Gays who happen to be biological parents, of course. Oh yes, heterosexual parents are the first to see the risk to their parental rights, but gays and lesbians aren’t morons either. In spite of the activists’ rhetoric, gay and lesbian biological parents should be quaking in terror. Which of their former partners may stake the next claim? On what grounds? Do they dare go back to the jurisdiction they entered into a civil union in to dissolve said civil union? How do they protect their children against frivolous custody claims from all sides?
There are no winners in this case, only losers. It’s possible to win a battle, and in doing so sacrifice all hope of winning the war. This battle to rip Isabella away from Lisa is just such a fight.
The best interests of the child has always been the litmus test for deciding custody cases. When Judge Cohen varied from that standard, he made a huge mistake. Nobody wins when children lose.
Annie, gays and lesbians aren’t stupid, none of us are going to buy your idiotic line that its in our best interests to support Miller’s kidnapping of Isabella so get off it. Jenkins is as much Isabella’s mother as Miller is, there is nothing frivolous about her attempting to have a relationship with her daughter. Judge Coen did decide based upon the best interests of children. It is in Isabella’s best interests to have a relationship with both her parents. Miller acted against Isabella’s best interests and if the justice system were to reward her crime by allowing her custody that would send a message to all divorced parents to deny their child a relationship with their other parent and the court will reward your lawlessness. That would harm countless numbers of children involved in custody battles. The law cannot reward criminal acts or soon the U.S. will be a nation of criminals.
Yeah, Annie, your comment is called “concern trolling.”
That’s why I ignored it.
” none of us are going to buy your idiotic line that its in our best interests to support Miller’ kidnapping of Isabella..”
Well Duh! Of course not. I never suggested you should support Miller’s going into hiding with her child.
I simply pointed out that Judge Cohen’s decision to transfer custody from Miller to Jenkins, if allowed to set precedent, would endanger gay biological parents’ right to custody of their children at a greater rate than anyone else’s.
Miller going into hiding is a national tragedy. Many parents do this every year, and it’s always sad.
No it wouldn’t Annie. The only reason Miller has lost her custody rights is because she denied Jenkins court ordered visitation. If she’d have been an upstanding law-abiding person she’d still have legal custody. Gays and lesbians aren’t afraid of losing custody of their biological children because they’ve broken the law, we’re law abiding people.
In any event gays and lesbians are just as likely to be non-biological parents as biological ones. We support the right of non-biological parents to have access to their children because it is right and just. We have no desire to deprive any fit lawabiding parent of a right to see their children so Judge Cohen’s decision not only doesn’t worrry us, it comforts us that a precident of doing the right thing has been set.
Yes, but Annie, gay couples aren’t the only people who ever have children that are only biologically linked to one of them, and if both are legally parents of the child, then that can’t be the final arbiter of custody settlements.
“and if both are legally parents of the child,”
…and therein lies the problem. Judge Cohen in Vermont has worked out a new way for a person to become a legal parent of a child. If this new way for a person to become a legal parent becomes common practice, there will be consequences. Not all of these consequences will be as felicitous as many here apparently imagine.
Social experiments always begin optimistically. Harm is rarely intended. How they end is another matter.
“and therein lies the problem. Judge Cohen in Vermont has worked out a new way for a person to become a legal parent of a child.”.
No he has not. Any time two people get married (or similar to married) they become parents of the children they bring into the relationship. This has been done this way for a very very long time and it works well. It is you who seeks to unsettle centuries of law and to deny parenthood to people the law has long assumed to be parents. Children are best served by having a relationship with both parents assuming both are fit. Jenkins is a fit parent and now Miller has demonstrated that she is unfit. It is in the best interests of the child to be placed with Jenkins.
Priya Lynn,
I understand your confidence. “Gays and lesbians aren’t afraid of losing custody of their biological children because … we’re law abiding people. ” It’s easy to believe that, before you’ve had a few hard knocks.
Nobody joins in a marriage or civil union expecting it to end badly. That would be daffy. It’s only after things end badly that former partners often mistrust or even fear each other.
Life brings many surprises, most good, some bad. Custody battles are always tragic, and never simple.
Look, I’m not here to shatter any of your dearly held preconceptions. Life does that soon enough, but what it gives back to you in joy is more than worth the ride.
Just don’t be so sure that everyone who says things you don’t like is out to get you. It’s simply not true. Most people are well-intentioned, even the ones who disagree with you.
Annie, you’re a bigot and you need to accept the truth of that. You come here to attack LGBT people and justify their maltreatment. You wouldn’t know what well-intentioned was if it bit you in the a*s. I’ve dealt with countless bigots like you pretending (poorly) to be well-intentioned. You’re not fooling me and you’re not going to fool the vast majority of LGBTs.
ROFLMFAO!
Wow! Do you really have this much time on your hands?
OK. Let’s assume you do. Examine the oft touted phrase
“Children are best served by having a relationship with both parents assuming both are fit…”
Instead of just swallowing it hook line and sinker, examine the “fact” from all angles. Consider all the possibilities and permutations. Is it really universally true? Of course not!
So it is with many things “Everybody knows.” “Everybody knows” a lot of silly disjointed nonsense they’ve never rationally examined.
You don’t need me to present alternative ideas to you. You can come up with them for yourself – or not. It’s up to you. Thinking for yourself is uncomfortable, and often puts you out of step with the crowd. You will probably be happier if you don’t do it.
I’ve got to go teach Logic now. Thinking for yourself isn’t a choice in this school. It’s a graded event.
Blessings!
Annie, logic totally eludes you. Your stating that there are exceptions to the idea that children are best served by having a relationship with both parents assuming both are fit doesn’t make it so. Give us some examples or STFU.
I’m a bigot? OK. If it makes you comfortable, then go with that. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t stay in your comfort zone. Don’t let anybody coax you out until you’re ready.
Again, it’s time to take my distressing notions off line for the day.
Happy Posting!
Oh good grief. After all that, you really want me to “give” you some examples? Does your mommy still dress you?
I’ll “ST*U, as you so charmingly put it.
No, Annie, I’m not comfortable with the reality that you’re a bigot, I wish everyone was nice and reasonable. But I can accept that there are people in this world that seek to harm those who harm no one and who try to cover their efforts with a facade of being “well intentioned”. There will always be bigots like you in the world and there will always be people like me who put fairness first and debunk your disingenous attempts to rationalize injustices.
Good one Annie, you can’t defend your statements so you just make the empty claim that you can and run away – you’re a real logician all right.
For many decades family courts have held that its in the best interests of children to have a relationship with both their parents if they are fit. Annie lives under the delusion that she knows better despite having nothing to back up that delusion. Go tell it to the justice system Annie and straighten them out. Clearly thousands of the finest legal minds have missed your genius.
Priya Lynn,
I know I seem impatient. I’m sorry to come across as dismissive.
Do you understand what “black and white thinking” is, and how it effects a person’s ability to reason?
I’m sure you do, when you consider the far Right. Christian Fundamentalists are famous for “black and white thinking”, or “splitting”, as Sociologists and Psychologists call it.
I understand that right now you’re focused on “winning” a discussion. That’s understandable.
At some other time, when you’re not dealing with the overwhelming stress of communicating with a “bad” person like me, please consider how black and white thinking might be distorting your ability to appreciate humanity as it really is.
Annie I don’t give a damn about your off-topic BS. You’re a dishonest bigot, when I asked you for an example of how children are not best served by having a relationship with both parents if they are fit you pathetically used the “its so obvious I’m not going to mention it” dodge. If you had any valid examples you’d have been eager to demonstrate them. The fact is you don’t have any logic to back up your delusions and that’s also why you’re trying to now change the subject. I’m not playing your game, so STFU like you promised you would.
Annie, Christian Rightists boast about black-and-white thinking but they rarely practice it. They are notorious for moral relativism whenever it suits their objective. That is what you are doing throughout this discussion: distorting facts and bending principles into a pretzel, while failing to supply any independent confirmation of your assertions.
There is no evidence that Judge Cohen has ever placed other considerations ahead of the welfare of Isabella. Your contempt for principle, family law, and child welfare are duly noted.
Until you can provide independent and reputable substantiation for your assertions — and demonstrate that you can adhere to coherent principles — please cease commenting. Strawman argumentation and meandering gossip are not welcome here.