Court Passes On Same-Sex Fight Over Child

FILE - In this March 15, 2000 file photo, master flatpicker Doc Watson talks about his long and successful musical career at his home in Deep Gap, N.C. Watson, the Grammy-award winning folk musician whose lightning-fast style of flatpicking influenced guitarists around the world for more than a half-century, died Tuesday, May 29, 2012 at a hospital in Winston-Salem, according to a hospital spokeswoman and his management company. He was 89. (AP Photo/Karen Tam, File) / KAREN TAM

The Supreme Court has refused to intercede in a Virginia dispute between two former lesbian lovers over visitation rights involving a 4-year-old child.

The child's biological mother, Lisa Miller, had asked the justices to take the case because Vermont courts have ordered Miller to allow her former lover, Janet Jenkins, to see the child one week each month.

Miller, who says she has renounced her lesbianism and sought legal custody of a child born during her civil union with another woman, cites the Defense of Marriage Act in her suit seeking to prevent Jenkins from obtaining visitation rights.

In 2000, the two women entered into a civil union in Vermont, and they decided Lisa would use artificial insemination with an anonymous donor to have a child. Their daughter was born in Virginia in 2002 and the two women moved to Vermont, where they lived for a year before separating.

Miller renounced her homosexuality, returned to Virginia and denied Jenkins' demands for visitation rights.

Vermont courts have ordered Miller to allow Jenkins to see the child one week a month.

Relying heavily on the rulings by Vermont courts, the Virginia Court of Appeals said Miller is required to comply with visitation orders of the Vermont courts under the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. That law was passed in 1980 as a means to create national standards with regard to jurisdiction over child custody disputes.

Miller says the act conflicts with a more recent federal law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, on same-sex marriage. That law says no state shall be required to abide by a law of any other state with respect to a same-sex marriage.

In asking the justices to take the case, Miller's lawyers said state courts in Vermont and elsewhere have "eviscerated the protections afforded each state" under the Defense of Marriage Act.

Jenkins' lawyers said Vermont courts were the first to take jurisdiction of the case and that Miller's response was to "run to a Virginia court" seeking a result more to her liking.

The case is Lisa Miller-Jenkins v. Janet Miller-Jenkins, 06-1110.

[gunnerv1]

Trueprogress: You are one Fuc*ed up person, ya know that girl. If your anything like most of the (99.999%) Lizze. Profs. where I'm at, I wouldn't touch you with a 10 foot di*k.

[gunnerv1]

Getting "Visitation" or not, you are still legally obligated to pay Child Support. The only way out is if the Non-coustodial Parent allows someone to adopth the child. Sorry, it's the law, until the child turns 18, gets Married before turning 18, goes into the Military. In some cases, if the "Child" attends an Instution of Higher Learning, then you could be obligated until they are 23, it's not called child support, but it feels the same. Visitation has NOTHING to do with child support. Don't pay and see what happens!

[gunnerv1]

I think this as funney as cra*. It backfired in her face. You can't have it both ways.

[trueprogress]

I am offended by these statements.

[erinye_fury]

TRUEPROGRESS: Quote "When slavery was officially ended at the end of the Civil War, in 1932, women did not have equal rights, and nor do they today, except in a few states (Think Vermont.)" The Civil War ended in 1865, not 1932. Slavery ended with President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and was effected after that war ended. Women gained the right to vote in every state with the 19th ammendment to the Constitution, ratified August 18, 1920. You are no professor of Women's Studies in the USA.

[erinye_fury]

TRUEPROGRESS - I do not believe you are a professor at any United States college. Your writing has errors in it that a professor would edit out in a public forum. If you cover your face and "gender zones" it might be possible you are or were a muslim instructing at an islamic school. Quote "I consider it an outrage that this case, on CBS, a male dominated network, would be even discusssed with males possibly "listening in" to our affairs." This sounds muslim to me. Either find a female shrink or go back to Pakistan. (Or other islamic country.)

[erinye_fury]

TRUEPROGRESS I read your posts. As long as you live in a world where about 50% of your species is male you cannot be "free" from male influences. You said "I do not speak to males. I only shop at female only stores. I turn my back if I encounter one, and wear a mask and cover my gender zones to be safe (safer) from a possible attack. I carry mace, and a kitchen knife at all times. Once free, the anger leaves." I suggest you still have a great deal of anger as well as paranoia. Find a female shrink, honey.

[grammawhamma]

Regarding trueprogress's post at 1:58am: WOW!! I can't believe that you just admitted all that stuff about yourself in your post. And you say that you bring truth and wisdom to these boards!!?? I used to think that you were just an over educated idiot...but now I truely feel sorry for you. I also feel sorry for your students though I must admit.

[trueprogress]

Agnim : You sound like an angry person. I have overcome that feeling by empowering myself. As a feminist Professor, I can bring some wisdom and understanding. Years of study and teaching has enlightened me, with deep knowledge and very very deep understanding. I am free of all male influences. My cats are all female, as I refused to have the little female kitties be corned by dominate males. I do not speak to males. I only shop at female only stores. I turn my back if I encounter one, and wear a mask and cover my gender zones to be safe (safer) from a possible attack. I carry mace, and a kitchen knife at all times.
Once free , the anger leaves.
Gov't here should pay this women's "alimony" if one is due, as reparation for female slavery. When slavery was officially ended at the end of the Civil War, in 1932, women did not have equal rights, and nor do they today, except in a few states (Think Vermont.)

[agnim]

"Women have been bought and sold and today, therefore have a heritage that demands vigilence for all rights so far won.
....

I wish I could give a lecture to each and every "cement head" who disagrees with the truth !!
Posted by trueprogress at 10:36 PM : Apr 30, 2007"

LOL
You will need to give yourself that lecture; because it seems that you've been hibernating on another planet if you don't realize that women are STILL being sold today!

Women ARE NOT in a position to 'win rights'.
The submissive gender CANNOT 'win rights' from the dominant gender.

Women have as much rights as men give/allow.

Just bear in mind that women don't buy and sell men; it's the other way around. And it will ALWAYS be the other way around; because it will ALWAYS be a man's world.

My advise for your to get out of that state of self-delusion is to learn the ART OF SURRENDER; because that is woman's strength.

Women, the submissive gender, can't contend with men, the dominant gender, and not wind up the LOSER!
Please don't let the feminist folly get to our head. It's an ILLUSION! LOL