Miller
When Lisa Miller left her partner Janet Jenkins and took their daughter Isabella with her, it was the Christian thing to do. Quite literally, since Miller denounced her former lesbianism and became a Christian – in Jerry Falwell's church, no less.
Miller doesn't want anything to do with Jenkins and doesn't want their daughter to have anything to do with Jenkins, either. And so Jenkins sued. And things got ugly and have been ugly for years as things so often are in custody battles.
Except that this is no ordinary custody battle.
Lisa Miller is, in many ways, a dream come true for the anti-gay right. She's a fairly attractive ex-lesbian fighting in order to save her daughter from the evil forces of homosexuality. Needless to say, she has received a lot of high-publicity help from the anti-gay legal ranks, such as the Liberty Council.
The case is complicated on so many levels. Miller and Jenkins did, after all, enter into a civil union in Vermont before they had Isabella. But when Miller left with Isabella, she went to Virginia, a state that does not recognize same-sex unions.
There has been a court ordered custody agreement, but Miller has always defied it. She doesn't want Isabella around Jenkins because Jenkins is gay and that is, after all, horrible and disgusting and evil and wrong and how can she teach these values to her daughter if Jenkins is in the picture?
Tired of fucking around, a Vermont judge ruled in favor of Jenkins and ordered custody be relinquished by Miller on New Year's Day.
So on New Year's Day, Miller showed up on Jenkins's doorstep with Isabella and the two women hugged and said, "No hard feelings" and Isabella stood between them and smiled.
Actually, Miller and Isabella never showed up. And nobody seems to know where they are. Her lawyers at the Liberty Council are mum. In fact, there was even a report that they were on vacation and couldn't comment. Because, you know, a client skipping out on a court order and potentially fleeing with the child is no big thing.
The saga has brought out the best and the brightest of the anti-gay brigade. National Organization for Marriage President Maggie Gallagher had particularly clarion insight on the matter. "Let this act as a warning call: Don't enter civil unions with people if you do not want to give them legal rights over your children," Gallagher said.
Oh, OK. Got it. It's much better to have children outside of pesky legal commitments like civil unions. But why stop there? Marriage, an institution open to everyone except gays, is an even bigger problem. Because having kids with someone you're married to also creates a lot of legal headaches. And if you never get married, you don't ever have to get divorced! Thanks, Maggie! As I've always said, a nation of bastard children is a nation of happy children.
Seriously, though. If Jenkins and Miller were a heterosexual couple, Miller wouldn't have been able to just elbow Jenkins out of the picture so easily. Unless Jenkins was a danger to her child (she isn't), she'd be allowed visitation if she were a dude and nobody would even be talking about this because it happens all the time.
Ex-wives and ex-husbands do ugly things to each other and, far too often, kids are trapped in the middle of it all. Allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry helps protect the kids that exist in many of these relationships, which is something Miller and the anti-gay horde she has supporting her would acknowledge if they really wanted to "protect" marriage.
