Christian Ex-Lesbian "Kidnaps" own Kid over Custody DisputeFollow

...But you were replying to someone who had said, and you quote:


So how is
a rebuttal?

I created a child once with my bare hands.

Well, to some people he may be considered a puppet, but if you ask him, he's a real boy!

Yes, very interesting. You have brought me around to your point of view all right.

A non-biological parent gaining custody/visitation really isn't unusual. Especially if the non-biological party had established themselves as a parent through the relationship. Which isn't to say it happens all the time but it's far from "shocking".

Ironically, the time you usually hear about this is when some dude is lamenting that he has to pay child support on some kids who aren't even biologically his.

Wrong.

There have been plenty of messy custody disputes involving fathers who were with the mother through the pregnancy, at the birth, had their name on the birth certificate, and then turned out not to be the child's genetic parent, and in many of those cases, the reason the dispute got messy was because in some, if not all, states, being on the birth certificate gives you the rights of a biological parent.

Then there's the whole issue of step-parents legally adopting children, or adoption in general. Were the law to take your view of things, any biological parent could claim custody at any time, and that's not the case. Usually if a biological parent regains custody of a child given up for adoption (after the "change your mind" grace period/window has run out) it's because there was some legal loophole they slipped through.



Edited, Jan 4th 2010 3:29pm by Ambrya

What "fallout"? If my wife and I decided to have a baby and I was infertile and we went the artificial insemination via donor route, we'd be in the exact same situation legally as the couple in the OP. The only difference would be that there'd be no "Oooohhh... gay marriage!" angle to the story to make it worthy of a post in Forum=4.

Did you actually read the story? Or even the OP?

Not at all. These aren't some uncharted waters except that we can say "Zoinks! Lesbians!" instead of "Zoinks! Heterosexual couple who had a baby via artifical semination using a sperm donor!"

Edited, Jan 4th 2010 6:17pm by Jophiel

So what? The woman can easily enough produce evidence in the custody dispute that I am not the biological father. It's the exact same case -- Two "parents", one of which contributed 50% of the genetic information in the baby and the other who "only" went through the medical process as a partner.


That's a lovely guess except that the other parent in the OP had been attempting to use her legally granted visitation rights for the past six years. She didn't just pop up from under a rock after six years and demand custody. She has been making an active effort towards involvement since Day One.


Who knows? Who cares? There's a whole ton of people out there who do things without examining the legal consequences. Is that suddenly a defense?


Again, did you even read the story? OMG it must be a LIBERAL CONSPIRACY if we're too fucking lazy to read the story and see that this has been an ongoing battle for the last six years!

Edited, Jan 4th 2010 6:31pm by Jophiel

Not the point at all. I'm talking about why spouses are automatically placed on the birth certificate as the "father" of the child. The assumption which rests behind that process does not make sense when the couple is same-sex.



Yes. With the key difference being that this is the exception when marriages consist of a man and a woman, and are the 100% only case possible when marriages consist of two women.

The laws and procedures should flow from the most common case, with exceptions being left to the courts. The effect of simply dropping same sex couples into existing marriage laws has created a situation where the assumed norm is always false, and the exception is always true.


We create those rules so that they work the majority of the time, somewhat specifically to reduce the amount of legal fighting we have to go through. Had the state adopted separate rules for gay marriages, those rules could have included things like "spouses are not automatically placed on birth certificates" could have been included. You know. So that the automatic process now matches the norm instead of the exception.


But I suppose cries of "separate but equal!" win out against common freaking sense every single time, don't they?



Yeah. I missed that paragraph. Still doesn't change the underlying issue though. It's wholly correct to create different rules with regard to birth certificates when the couple is same sex. Sadly, the blind masses will tend to respond to emotional rhetoric about false equality issues rather than applying common sense. So, we'll keep on mashing that square peg into the round hole and hope that one day it'll fit...




When the entire legal situation is so new that this is a legal first? Yeah. I think not realizing ramifications which violate common sense is a pretty decent legal defense. Prior to dropping gay couples into existing marriage law, no lesbian assumed that her partner could take her child away from her legally, or even demand visitation rights if they should separate later.

Yes. It's something that is part of existing marriage. But how many times did anyone argue for gay marriage so that if they later divorced, their partner would be able to sue for visitation and/or custody rights? Ever?


The point is that the whole cause was pushed on emotion and not reason. Thus, a whole lot of people, even those at the center of the fight, likely never actually stopped and thought about what they were getting. They were so exited that they could marry that many of them rushed off to do it, not because they understood the commitment and long legal ramifications, but purely because they could.

How often have I argued that there is a pretty wide gap between what gay couples say they want, and all the things that get lumped into marriage? Every single time the thread has come up. This is one of those things. Marriage laws include a huge number of things that gay couples don't want, don't need, or for which there's no rational reason for them to have. Yet, because there are a small number of things they do want, need, and should be able to have, they push for the whole package.


Well... Surprise! Got more than you bargained for, didn't you? Marriage isn't just some toy to insist on having because the other kid has one. But that's how a whole lot of people treat it in the context of this issue.

This reminds me of the reason for marriage benefits debate in that Gbaji makes up reasons for things, and then insists they are fundamentally true. News flash, the world doesn't work like that.

There is no assumption made about someone being the biological parent, because it's completely irrelevant. It's about being the official parent as far as the law is concerned, and that doesn't have to have anything to do with who provided genetic material. This is illustrated in adoption, both by a couple and by a new spouse in a relationship.

If for some reason a women has a baby that her husband is not the father of, no one assumes he's the biological parent. What actually happens is when they register the birth, they put themselves down as parents. The husband could choose not to if they didn't want him to be an official parent.

The law doesn't make these assumptions you keep harping on about. They demand proof. In this case it's irrelevant because they were both officially parents.

Edited, Jan 4th 2010 7:03pm by Xsarus

That's not a "difference" of any consequence. If the legal system is equipped to deal with it when it happens between heterosexual partners, they are equipped to deal with it between homosexual partners because the case is exactly the same.

You keep acting as though this case is some huge Gotcha! regarding gay marriage but it's not. It actually has fuck-all to do with gay marriage and everything to do with custody of a child following insemination via donor.


No, that actually is the underlying issue. See, you really, really need this to be different than it would be between a man and woman in the same situation. You need this because you're fully vested in making some big "toldjaso" statement about gay marriage. But this isn't really about gay marriage.



Well, thank God you're not her lawyer. Or maybe you are her lawyer seeing as how she's losing the case.


This is a child custody case, not a marriage case.


Obviously not. Of course, the woman suing for custody isn't treating it like a toy either so I'm not sure what your point here is except to lamely try to score points off hypothetical couples.

By the way, the couple in question were never "married". They were joined via civil union. You know, the agreement where you always go into gay marriage debates and say "Why not civil unions? Those would be great! If those gay people would just accept civil unions instead of marriages, this would all be swell but they won't so they're dumb"? So all these retarded remarks you keep trying to throw in about gay marriage? Heh... they're pretty funny. I'm sure you'll have three paragraphs about why they're not funny but they really are.

And apparently, the civil union laws in Vermont is tied into many of the automatic legal conditions for marriage. I don't live there, so I don't know for sure.

If the couple in question signed some additional paperwork adding Jenkins as the adopted mother of the child, then I'll certainly retract my entire argument in this case. But I've seen no information to show that this is the case. My assumption (and I freely admit it could be incorrect) is that the child was assumed to belong to both of them purely because they were "married" (civil union, whatever) and the state law requires that the spouse's name be filled in as the father on the birth certificate.

If that's wrong, and Miller willingly allowed her partner to adopt her child, then by all means she's required to continue that commitment. Of course, that also means that the sexual orientation issue is really irrelevant to the case at hand as well since nothing about the case revolves around it. The same case could occur as a result of any mother allowing a partner (married or not) to adopt her child and become a legal parent.

Edited, Jan 4th 2010 7:13pm by gbaji

Where did you get this information? I've read the linked article and the linked legal documents PDF on that article. Nowhere in those two sources did it mention how Jenkins came to be the "father" of the child (other than stating that the two were in a civil union when the child was born), nor was any mention of child support made. The article states that the judge held Miller in contempt for not allowing visitation, but the only mention of such in the attached legal documents shows Miller charging that Jenkins refused to allow Miller to drop the child off at her home, insisting that she drop her at a park or at her mothers home.

Since you live a bit closer to the area in question, you may have some info I don't have. I can only go on what I've read.


While I know that most of you want to define this issue in the context of being pro or anti gay, for me, that's simply not relevant here. What is relevant to me is whether or not the biological mother fully understood at the time she had her child that by being in a civil union with another woman, that this woman would retain parental rights over her child even in the event of a future divorce. I'm also of the opinion that in the case of same-sex marriages that this should not automatically be the case. My position there is based on a belief that the existing rule regarding parentage extending past divorce exists entirely due to an assumption of biological parentage on the part of the spouse. We don't automatically grant parental rights or responsibilities to former step fathers, or ex-husbands divorced prior to the birth of a child. We *only* enforce that condition automatically when the child is born to a married couple.


I'm simply looking at why we do that, but not in the other cases. It's not about whether someone *could* be a parent to a child, or has acted as a parent to the child in the past (as a step father might). To me, that automatic process exists only because of an assumed biological relationship. And since that relationship cannot exist in the case of a same-sex relationship, I believe that such automatic parental rights/responsibilities should not exist for a same-sex couple. If they wish to grant said rights to the spouse via an adoption process it should be allowed, following the exact same criteria as is used with step parents. But the automatic inclusion of the spouse as the "father" on a birth certificate should not be there in the case of same sex marriages IMO.


For me, that's far more important. I'm not picking a side with regard to these two women. I don't know them. I don't know the specifics of the case (beyond what's written). And frankly, those specifics aren't as important to me as the broader aspects of the law. It's not about liking or disliking one side or the other. It's about coming up with a sane set of rules that make the most sense and are the most useful to everyone involved the majority of the time...