Since 2004, “former lesbian” Lisa Miller has violated numerous court rulings in Vermont and Virginia that granted visitation rights to her former partner Janet Jenkins for their daughter Isabella, who was born in 2002.

After unfavorable family-court rulings, Miller worked with religious-right activists to undermine U.S. family law by demanding a special right of ex-gays and religious extremists to move from state to state to escape their family obligations. Had she succeeded, the ability of U.S. states to enforce custody and deadbeat-dad laws could have been damaged. But on June 6, 2008, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld Vermont’ jurisdiction over her former partnership and the resulting child. The Liberty Counsel then vowed to find other ways to sidestep the nation’ laws. In October, a Vermont court was to have considered jailing Miller for contempt of court.

Instead, The Rutland Herald reported, a Vermont judge “decided against punitive measures, instead imposing a new visitation schedule and ordering Jenkins and Miller to communicate directly during preparations for visits and the visits themselves.”

Miller violated that unwise compromise, and on Aug. 25, it seems, the ACLU requested that Lisa Miller be jailed in Virginia and forced to pay attorney fees. But a Virginia judge ruled that although Miller violated a Vermont judge’ visitation order, no fines would be assessed against her. The Christian Post reported, “The court ordered Miller to pay $100 per day for pending visitation orders issued in Vermont, but there are none at this time.” According to World magazine, “a Vermont judge has yet to issue a ruling following a hearing last week that considered Jenkin’ request for custody of Isabella. Later this year, the Virginia Court of Appeals is expected to hear oral arguments on whether Virginia must enforce Vermont’ orders in the case.” The Christian Post points out, “The appeals court previously ruled that Virginia must recognize Vermont’ orders but has not ruled” on whether Virginia must actually enforce those orders.

Focus on the Family and the religious-right Liberty Counsel called the ACLU’s loss “good news” for fugitive antigay Christians.

In an interview last year, Miller maintained her claim to be ex-gay but essentially admitted she had never really been predominantly same-sex-attracted. With Jenkins in particular, she had merely sought platonic female companionship — and apparently deceived Jenkins into forming a civil union. If that is true, then Miller has spent the past five years falsely equating a true lesbian sexual orientation with her largely sexless, insecure, and emotionally unstable “lifestyle.”

Ex-gay advocate Debbie Thurman has formed a Facebook support group for Miller’s fugitive behavior against the U.S. family court system.

Ex-gay fugitive from justice Lisa Miller continues to violate Virginia and Vermont court orders that she comply with the visitation rights of former partner and co-mother Janet Jenkins.

As Truth Wins Out has previously reported, since 2004 Miller has worked with religious-right activists to undermine U.S. family law by demanding a special right of ex-gays and religious extremists to move from state to state to escape their family obligations. Had she succeeded, the ability of U.S. states to enforce custody and deadbeat-dad laws could have been damaged.

But on June 6, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld Vermont’s jurisdiction over her former partnership and the resulting child.

The Liberty Counsel vowed to find other ways to sidestep the nation’s laws, but on Oct. 27, Miller’s case returns where it belonged from the start: In Vermont, the state from which Miller fled justice in the first place.

Vermont courts are virtually certain to uphold earlier rulings in favor of Jenkins’ visitation rights.

Now the Liberty Counsel, Concerned Women for America, and antigay activist Peter LaBarbera are launching a scare campaign and a political mobilization. They warn that on Oct. 27, a Vermont judge might strip Miller of custody due to her persistent and continuing violations of family law and court rulings in two states.

Total loss of custody seems unlikely to me. However, even if it were likely, Miller can pre-empt that loss — and end her career as a fugitive — by respecting law, order, morality, and the welfare of her child.

Or, she can continue to act illegally and use her child as a pawn in a religious-right political war against family values. If she continues, then perhaps it is appropriate that Miller temporarily lose custody until she stops using her child as a political pawn — and starts obeying laws which exist to protect children from fugitive and deadbeat parents.

Far from being persecuted victims, Miller and her allies have become habitual offenders against family values and the rule of law. They are not Christian — they are egomaniacs who believe they are above compliance with any law.

One way or another, Isabella deserves better parenting than she has received thus far.

Ruling on a technicality, the Virginia Supreme Court on June 6 rejected “ex-gay” activist and veritable fugitive Lisa Miller’s use of the state as a shelter from Vermont family court rulings. The court upheld an appellate ruling which recognized Vermont’s jurisdiction and implicitly acknowledged ex-partner Janet Jenkins visitation rights with daughter Isabella, whom they jointly agreed to conceive.

(At left, Janet, Isabella, and Lisa Miller-Jenkins prior to dispute)

The dispute began in 2003, when Miller — dissatisfied with her civil union to Jenkins — took Isabella and fled to Virginia. She acknowledged Vermont’s jurisdiction by dissolving the civil union there and seeking child support. But Miller did not count on Vermont recognizing Jenkins’ visitation rights.

By 2004, Miller was claiming to be “ex-gay” and violating Jenkins’ visitation rights. (To this day, Miller has deceived the public and capitalized upon religious-right support by claiming to be ex-gay while declining to state whether she has any attraction to men whatsoever.)

In exchange for legal representation of questionable competence, Miller gave exploitation rights over Isabella to the religious-rightist Liberty Counsel, which has sought to use Miller’s flight from justice to undermine both Vermont family law and the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act which protects children from parents who cross state lines to evade custody rulings.

A Virginia Court of Appeals ruling (PDF) eventually reversed a lower Virginia court’s violation of Vermont and federal law. Miller and the Liberty Counsel then waited too long to appeal and missed a deadline. Miller continued to violate Vermont visitation orders. When Jenkins sought to file a final Vermont court order for enforcement in the Virginia courts, the Liberty Counsel saw an opportunity for a fresh round of litigation. In the view of New York Law School professor Arthur S. Leonard, the Virginia Supreme Court was not fooled by the Liberty Counsel’s second round of litigation; it was clearly the same old dispute being reopened ad nauseum.

According to The Rutland Herald:

Miller’s attorney, Mathew Staver, said his client “has not lost her courage or her resolve” and will pursue other legal options. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the law school at the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, said he hopes to raise the issue of Virginia’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions in a new proceeding.

Liberty Counsel’s ongoing defense of ex-gay kidnapping underlines a religious-right commitment to fundamentalist lawlessness and subversion of family values.

For more information:

• Jurist: Legal News and Research (University of Pittsburgh)
• Virginia Supreme Court ruling (PDF)
• Equality Virginia FAQ
• Equality Loudoun comments on Virginia antigay Delegate Bob Marshall’s war against the daughter
• Lambda Legal press release

Lisa Miller and her partner, Janet Jenkins, exchanged vows in a civil union ceremony eight years ago in Vermont. Through artificial insemination, Lisa conceived and gave birth to Isabella in 2002. In 2003, Lisa adopted an ex-gay sexual identity, took Isabella and fled to Virginia, where she found an activist judge willing to violate Vermont child-custody and visitation orders.

From Vermont’ perspective, Lisa is now a law-breaking fugitive who has turned her daughter into a political pawn in the culture wars.

In late 2004, Vermont Family Court Judge William Cohen named Janet as a legal parent of Isabella as a consequence of the civil union.

Since then, Lisa has flouted Vermont family law and constitutional precedent in which states (such as Virginia) may not override other states’ jurisdiction and court rulings in matters of family law. Even as she violated the law, lived as a fugitive in Virginia, and sought to sever Janet’s ties to Isabella, Lisa won child support from Janet.

On Thursday (April 17), the Virginia Supreme Court will rule hear arguments in the custody dispute.

Focus on the Family has weighed in, supporting Lisa’s violations of Vermont family law and implicitly favoring a “special right” of antigay states to disobey the court rulings of states that have jurisdiction over a marriage, civil union, or child custody.

For more information:

Men’s News Daily
The Virginian-Pilot
PinkNews

It was the oddest event in my fifteen-year activism career.

I had ventured to Orlando, Florida last summer to attend the National Education Association’s annual meeting. Crashing the conference was the so-called “Ex-Gay Educators Caucus,” a sham organization run primarily by anti-gay lobbyists, who are attempting to get the viewpoints of “former homosexuals” into public schools. To counter their presence, I staged a press conference outside the huge convention center.

Following the media event, I unassumingly straggled into the gargantuan showroom where there were booths as far as the eye could see, representing numerous causes and products. Eventually, I spotted the ex-gay booth, staffed by a man who ran a Focus on the Family offshoot, ex-lesbian Janet Boynes and a woman who claimed to represent Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). I slowly walked up to the booth and began peering at the group’s literature.

Over the years, I have visited anti-gay booths or conferences dozens of times. In almost every case, we engaged in light banter, shook hands and politely agreed to disagree. They regularly come to our events and we, in turn, visit theirs — and there is an unspoken rule that the opposition will be treated courteously, if only because you don’t want to be harassed when in “enemy territory.”

This time it was different.
(Read More)