Lesbian custody trial continues

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -

A court custody battle continues between a born-again Christian mother in Virginia and her former lesbian partner in Vermont.

Lisa Miller's daughter Isabella is now seven-and-a-half years old. Miller ended her lesbian relationship with Janet Jenkins and set up residence in Virginia when Isabella was an infant. Miller is now a Christian, while Jenkins is still a practicing lesbian.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=660402

ACLU’s Request to Jail Lisa Miller Fails in Virginia Court

Winchester, VA – Earlier today, Liberty Counsel appeared in court to defend Lisa Miller from a complaint filed by the ACLU of Virginia on behalf of Janet Jenkins. The ACLU asked the judge to order Lisa to jail for not delivering her own daughter, Isabella, to Vermont for unsupervised visitation with Janet. The ACLU also requested Lisa to pay attorneys fees and costs. No jail time was ordered and the court rejected the ACLU’s request for money.

Although the court ruled that Lisa had violated a Vermont judge’s visitation order, no fines were assessed against her. The court ordered that Lisa pay $100 per day for pending visitation orders issued in Vermont, but there are no pending visitation orders at this time. The ACLU vigorously argued against Liberty Counsel’s requested change of venue to Bedford County, where Lisa lives and Isabella attends school. However, the court ruled that future disputes in this case will be heard in Bedford County.

http://www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14100&PRID=846

Court favors mother's rights over former lesbian partner

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow -
A Utah woman involved in a lesbian relationship left her partner and took her child with her, a move that led to a courtroom battle.

Jana Dickson left the relationship with lesbian partner Gena-Louise Edvalson because she believed it was not a good environment to raise her two-year-old son, among other reasons. Salt Lake City Alliance Defense Fund attorney Frank Mylar represented Dickson.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=604794

Two states facing off in lesbian custody battle

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

Liberty Counsel has intervened in another custody battle between two lesbians.

The case pits California law against Alabama law. Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, says the Alabama Court of Appeals ruled that the state must "recognize and enforce" the California court's decision, stating that the former same-sex partner of the biological mother has parental rights to the child, even though she has no biological or adoptive relationship with the child.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=463344

Another Lesbian Mother Changes Her Mind...

This case from the UK has a slightly different fact pattern from the US case I posted last week. Still troubling.

Presumption of Parenthood

is not exactly equivalent to the Presumption of Paternity that has long reigned in family law. This is just one of the many issues involved in the Miller-Jenkins custody dispute that involves both Vermont and Virginia law. One of the attorneys birth mother Lisa Miller hired early in the case told her that under Vermont's civil union statute, there was a presumption that any child born within a civil union was presumed to be the child of both parties to that union. A rule that makes perfect sense in the case of an opposite sex union makes no sense in the case of same sex unions. Here is an excerpt from a long article on the Miller-Jenkins case::

JUDY BARONE HAD BEEN A FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY IN RUTLAND for more than 20 years when she agreed to represent Lisa. Barone concluded that her new client had been unjustly deprived of her right to argue that Janet was not Isabella's parent, she said. So she filed a motion asking Judge Cohen to withdraw the waiver of that right.

Cohen wanted to know if Barone was suggesting that Janet was not entitled to any parental rights solely because she had no biological connection to Isabella.

"No," Barone said. "The law in Vermont is clear that a child born during the time of the marriage to one of the people in the marriage . . ."

"And civil union," the judge interjected.

"And civil union," Barone agreed. "Would be rebuttably presumed to be a child of the civil union, the marriage. That leaves the right of either party to rebut the presumption. My client chose to rebut the presumption. She noticed the court of her choice, and it was waived involuntarily by her counsel that morning. Our request, judge, is that we put that issue back before the court."

Lisa and Janet's breakup had exposed a fundamental flaw in Vermont law, Barone suggested. Vermont's civil union statute made it a rebuttable presumption that Janet was Isabella's parent, yet spelled out no specific grounds for rebuttal. Other Vermont statutes, which predated the civil union law, detailed two routes to establishing legal parental rights: having a biological connection to a child, or adopting. Janet would not meet either of those standards, Barone said. "I think this case is really about the standard in Vermont that we have to be able to establish parentage," Barone told the judge. "What can be more basic and important?"

Janet's lawyer, Theodore Parisi, said that he found it a "huge stretch" to think that the Vermont statutes requiring proof of adoption or a biological connection to establish legal parental rights applied to people in civil unions.

Cohen agreed. Janet "is presumed to be -- in my view, your client without question is presumed to be the natural parent . . . by the basis of the civil union," Cohen told Parisi.

"We've got to look at the law," Barone countered. "That's our job here . . . If there is a problem with this law, then that's not your fault, my fault, this couple's fault. The solution will come. But we can't deny her her rights . . . There's a law that says who the parents are. We've gone by this for years in marriage, and in civil unions we have to work this out. It may be uncomfortable, and I grant you that it is for everybody concerned. But it's important."