Virginia and Vermont are currently engaged in a murky legal battle in an attempt to answer a question that strikes at the very heart of the gay marriage debate: Does 6-year-old Isabella Miller have two mommies?
Her biological mother, Lisa Miller, now a Christian living in Lynchburg, Va., says “no.” Miller conceived Isabella through donor sperm in 2002 while joined in a civil union with her former partner, Janet Jenkins, who is unrelated to Isabella and never sought to legally adopt her as a daughter. Miller and her Liberty Counsel attorneys argue Virginia’s marriage laws mean Jenkins should not be granted any rights as a parent.
Jenkins, however, says “yes,” and maintains the Vermont civil union guarantees her parental rights. A Vermont judge ruled in her favor in 2003, mandating she be allowed liberal, unsupervised visits with Isabella, although she has been denied custody of the child.
A legal circus followed the first court ruling, with a Virginia judge counter-ruling in 2004 that Miller was Isabella’s sole parent and awarding her full custody. Miller then began denying Jenkins’ visits, as she deemed her open lesbian lifestyle harmful to Isabella, who she wanted to raise in a Christian home with biblical traditions and values.
But Virginia appellate court and Virginia Supreme Court rulings have since upheld Vermont’s visitation ruling under the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. This law, the courts said, overrides Virginia’s Marriage Amendment and Marriage Affirmation Act, as well as the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which all define marriage as between one man and one woman.
In the six years since the chaos in the Virginia and Vermont courtrooms began, gay rights activists have rallied behind Jenkins, hoping the Vermont court ruling will legitimize gay marriages and civil unions.
In those same six years, Isabella has grown up with Miller as her only mother, virtually unfamiliar with Jenkins and unable to understand why this woman is fighting to be her “other mother.”
In response to what Liberty Counsel is calling “judicial tyranny,” concerned Virginia citizens have joined together to form the Protect Isabella Coalition, a grassroots effort aiming to create awareness about Miller and Isabella’s court struggles.
“The road toward justice has taken a long and winding path, but we believe the courts are getting closer to addressing the core issues in this case,” said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law, in a recent press release. “The people of Virginia have plainly spoken in favor of traditional marriage and have rejected same-sex unions. The Virginia courts must now uphold the Constitution.”
It seems illogical that the Virginia courts have repeatedly upheld Vermont’s visitation ruling, effectively ignoring the state’s marriage amendment and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Such “judicial tyranny” not only renders the marriage laws meaningless but strips the freedoms of the Virginia voters — including me, as I voted for the amendment when I lived in Virginia — who enacted the law.
On March 3, Liberty Counsel filed a brief in the Virginia Court of Appeals referring to the lack of case law in the area of civil union custody battles, noting all the custody cases cited by Jenkins’ attorneys relate to heterosexual couples or adoptive parents, according to the PIC press release. The brief asks the court to rule that the “full faith and credit” clause obligation does not require Virginia to enforce the Vermont order.
Miller has held onto custody of Isabella despite threats of jail time and having custody stripped from her and transferred to Jenkins, all for seeking to protect her daughter. Isabella can remember only three visits with Jenkins from 17 months of age on.
Although scheduled to visit with Jenkins March 7-13 in Vermont, Isabella’s trip was canceled, per doctor’s orders, because she was sick with the flu. Though offered the opportunity to visit Isabella in Virginia, Jenkins declined.
While the court battle between Virginia and Vermont indeed involves judicial tyranny, the most important, and overlooked, aspect of this case is a 6-year-old girl who cannot even begin to understand why judges are forcing her to spend time with a woman she hardly knows.
According to PIC, Isabella recently asked Miller, “Why doesn’t (Jenkins) just have her own daughter like you did.” She wonders why Jenkins “needs” her. To answer Isabella, Jenkins needs her to further a gay marriage movement that will take extreme measures to promote its agenda, even if that means taking a little girl away from her one, true mother.
I encourage concerned Christians to pray for Miller and Isabella, as well as Jenkins. Miller recently asked supporters through her “Only One Mommy” Facebook page to specifically pray “Isabella would have the full armor of God on when she enters into darkness … The battle is not over. Yet, the battle is not ours — it is the Lord’s.”
Editor’s note: Autry’s mother, Debbie Thurman, handles media inquiries for the Protect Isabella Coalition Web site.
Joel Landon Watts is a Masters of Theological Studies student with a focus in Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific ideals of the past century. Currently, he is a TA for Old Testament at United Theological Seminary under Dr. Vivian Johnson, Associate Professor of Old Testament. His first book, Rhetorical Strategies of the Evangelist: Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark, is expected to be published by Wipf and Stock early next year. He is currently co-editing a book on moving from Fear to Faith (Energion, 2013).
This is a sad story and an indictment upon our judicial system.
This is a sad story and an indictment upon our judicial system.