What Would King Solomon Do?

Below is an article from NEWSWEEK about a child custody battle between two women. It's sad that while we are fighting for the right to marry, the fact remains that there are couples who do break up and end their relationship. What makes it more complicated is when there are (a) a legal union that will be broken and (b) another life that will be greatly affected when this union is dissolved.

I'm sure the biological mother in this case has her own reasons for the change of heart (and preference and lifestyle). But what about the other mother, the one who shared as much of herself in the rearing of this child?

What about you, what would you do if you were the biological mother? How would you feel if you were the co-parent?

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NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Dec 15, 2008
Mrs. Kramer Vs. Mrs. Kramer

Lorraine Ali

It's an old story—parents split and fight for custody. But when both are women, and one says she is no longer gay, it gets complicated.

Isabella prefers to skip rather than walk down the long halls of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. With each springy step, the first grader's butterfly-print dress puffs full of air, giving her the appearance of weightlessness. She swings a bag of gummy bears in one hand, and in the other, a Sunday-school coloring sheet that reads "Obey God." One particularly high ballerina leap sends gummy bears skidding across the polished floor of the church and stops Isabella dead in her tracks. The dress deflates. Her mother Lisa Miller senses an imminent meltdown and starts counting down: "Five, four, three …" and by one, the little girl has all the candy in her hand again. "You beat the five-second rule," says Miller, "so it's still good." And with that, Isabella smiles, revealing a gap where two front baby teeth used to be, and stuffs the candy back in the bag. Skipping resumes.

Isabella hardly knows that she's at the center of a much bigger drama, a landmark custody battle between two women—both of whom she calls Mommy. Her parents are Miller, 40, who's fighting for exclusive, sole custody, and Janet Jenkins, 44, who's arguing for parental and visitation rights. Their case is the first to tackle the recognition of same-sex unions, marriage and the rights of homosexual parents across ideological, biological and state lines. And, uniquely, across religious lines once Miller became a devout Baptist, renounced her homosexuality and said she was determined to protect her daughter from a "lifestyle that's fundamentally wrong." Miller is Isabella's biological mom and lives with her daughter in Virginia, a state that does not recognize gay unions or marriage. Jenkins lives in Vermont, where she and Miller were happily—and legally—joined in a civil union eight years ago, and where the couple raised Isabella until they split when the child was just 17 months old. Since then, Miller has argued that her former partner—who has no blood tie to Isabella—also has no parental rights. "It would be like handing my child over to the milkman," she says. Jenkins disagrees. She says that as Miller's former legal partner who was at the IVF clinic when her daughter was conceived, and in the delivery room to catch her when she arrived, she should have visitation rights "like any other parent."

For more of the article, click here.