chloelikedolivia

Let’s put this in heterosexual terms first: say a married, straight couple want a child, but they can’t conceive because the husband is sterile. So the couple go through the sperm-selling websites for some operational sperm. The lab-made embryos are implanted in the wife, and, lo and behold, she has a child. At that point, would anyone rationally argue that the husband is not the child’s father? Would the husband have to adopt the child? No, obviously not. Now, what if, a year later, the wife decides she doesn’t want to be married to the husband and moves away? We would, of course, expect visitation rights for the father to not only be maintained, but enforced. And if the ex-wife decides that the ex-husband is a bad influence on the child because he’s, say, Norwegian? We would say that unless he’s abusive or neglectful to the child, she’s got to abide by any joint custody arrangements. If she refuses to do so, well, who among us would not say that she is legally in the wrong and something needs to be done?

In a nutshell, that’s the case between Janet Jenkins and Lisa Miller, except make the husband into a civil-unioned female partner and “Norwegian” into “lesbian.” Miller is the biological mother of Isabella, and about a year after Isabella’s birth, in 2003, Miller broke up withe Jenkins and left Vermont with Isabella to live with family in Virginia. She and Jenkins agreed to and maintained a rough visitation schedule. In church one day, Miller got born again and decided not to be gay. She pushed for sole custody of Isabella in 2004, wanting to completely cut Jenkins out of Isabella’s life.

In 2008, Miller said of Jenkins, “I do not feel safe leaving my daughter with her, and I believe I have a God-given and constitutional right to raise my child as I see fit. There is a homosexual agenda at work here, and Isabella is a pawn in their game. It has nothing to do with the law. Isabella was saved at age 4, loves God, and knows what’s right and what’s wrong. We don’t hate Janet, we pray for her soul and salvation.”