Virginia Court surprisingly Rules in Favor of Lesbian Vermont Partner!

First, a summary: In a surprise win, a lesbian partner successfully got her custody case moved back to Vermont where a custody order is already in place.

The Vermont woman's former partner moved back to Virginia with their child and attempted to argue that the Vermont Custody Order should not be upheld now that she and the child (her biological child) are residing in Virginia.

Interestingly, had the VA woman argued for a new Custody Order in VA instead of arguing that the VT Order should not be upheld, she probably would have been successful.

Now for the details: Janet and Lisa went to VT and entered into a civil union. The couple returned to VA where they had been living, Lisa was inseminated and a child was born in VA. When the child was 4mo, the family moved to VT where they lived for a little over a year at which point, the couple split up.

When the relationship ended, Lisa, the biological parent, took the child and moved back to VA. 2mo later Lisa filed a petition in VT to dissolve the civil union. In her Request to Dissolve the union, Lisa stated that the child was "the biological or adoptive" child of the civil union.

Lisa asked the VT court to do four things:
1) to dissolve the civil union
2) to award her legal and physical “rights and responsibilities for the minor child,”
3) to award Janet “suitable parent/child contact (supervised),” and
4) to “award payment of suitable child support money.”

The Vermont Court Order gave Lisa temporary legal and physical responsibility for the child and gave Janet parent-child contact in the form of visitation.

Two weeks after the Order was issued, Virginia's Marriage Affirmation Act became law and Lisa filed with the Virginia court asking them to affirm Lisa's sole right to the child and deny Janet any rights to the child.

And so the war began ....

Lisa asked the Virginia Court to do three things - first, find that the VT court acted improperly in their Custody ruling because it did not determine that Janet was a parent.

This is an interesting perspective for Lisa to take, especially considering she was the one who filed the Vermont petition stating that the child was "the biological or adoptive child" of the civil union! She further asked the VT court to award Janet "suitable parent/child contact" and to award Lisa monetary compensation in the form of child support.

Second she argued that even if the Virginia Court found the Vermont Court acted properly in issuing its Custody Order, the Virginia Court now has jurisdiction because Lisa has filed a parentage action in Virginia.

Now here's the problem with this piece of Lisa's argument. She argues that her parentage action is not a custody action or a visitation action and because it's not a custody or visitation action, VA now has jurisdiction. She claims she is only asking the VA court to determine that Janet is not a parent and therefore isn't entitled to custody or visitation of the child .... <--- did you see it? It's not a custody action or a visitation action ... yet she specifically requests that Janet not have custody or visitation rights. Hmmmmm.

Lisa was likely trying to get VA to determine that Janet was not a parent in her initial action. She would then have used that determination to trump the Vermont Custody Order in an effort to cut Janet out of the child's life.

But she failed to recognize that she was contradicting herself in her arguments and, as a result, seems to have gotten one of the most homophobic states in the country to make a determination in favor of gay rights.

Third Lisa argued that even if VT's ruling was proper and VA's Order is somehow construed as improper, then the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which authorizes states to decline to afford "full faith and credit" to same-sex marriages from other states, effectively overrides any custody or visitation order. But the Virginia appeals court disagreed, finding that DOMA only applies to marriage recognition, and has no apparent application to custody or visitation orders.

Again, Lisa's argument seems quite illogical. She tries to use a marriage act (and the fact that it is legal in Virginia to not recognize a same-sex union from another state) as justification for Virginia to also deny a custody order issued in another state.

Virginia ruled against Lisa on all counts. They cited Lisa's crucial mistake - Lisa was the one who moved to Virginia and petitioned VERMONT for a custody ruling. Had Lisa petitioned Virginia for the initial custody arrangment, VA would have maintained jurisdiction over the custody of the child and VT would have had no claims to jurisdiction.

Thankfully Lisa (and presumably her counsel) were too stupid to realize they should have filed in VA to begin with. As a result, there is now supporting caselaw for the rest of us to benefit from.

Just because you flee from a state where there is a custody order in effect, doesn't mean you get out of enforcement of that order.

Just because you decide you don't want your same-sex partner to no longer be considered a parent, doesn't make them not a parent. Nor does it necessarily mean a court will say they're not a parent just because you want them to.

This case could have far reaching consequences for non-biological parents in same-sex relationships if the relationship dissolves.

Way to go Janet!

Election 2007 - Wins and Losses

... but mostly wins. Here's a brief overview:

The Wins

• Same-sex marriage ban REJECTED in Arizona! (the first in the nation)
• South Dakota rejected a law that would ban abortions except to save a pregnant woman's life
• Missouri voted in support of stem-cell research
• 6 states voted to raise their minimum wage above the federal level bringing the total to 29 states with minimum wages above the federal level
• America didn't buy into the Republican Family Values b.s. (it probably didn't help that quite a few high profile republicans have been caught in sex scandals and corruption recently)
• Indiana got rid of Representative John Hostettler, the guy who thinks there's a "homosexual agenda" (I'm sorry, since when is equal rights an "agenda"?) and author of the draft of the Marriage Protection Act
• Pennsylvania gave Senator Rick Santorum the boot who, btw, held the 3rd highest seat in the GOP (he's the guy who said if you grant the right for people to have gay sex then you grant people the right to incest, adultery, polygamy and bigamy)
• And ... Senator George Allen of Virginia CONCEDED to his democratic opponent, Jim Webb!!! (Allen voted 2 times in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment - Webb does not support the Amendment. Unfortunately, Virginia was one of those states where the measure did pass, but only by a small margin.)

The Losses

• 7 states approved same-sex marriage bans (bringing the total to 27 states across the nation)
• Voters in Michigan approved a ban on some affirmative action programs
• Colorado and Arizona passed measures targeting illegal immigrants

Get Out and VOTE!

Tomorrow's the Big Day. November 7th - Election Day.

It is time to put LGBT Friendly politicians in Congress.

HRC has a list of candidates they are endorsing for this election. You can and should, if you haven't already, find out who is in support of LGBT rights. AND VOTE FOR THEM!

For a list of local LGBT Friendly candidates, visit Stonewall Democrats and click on your state. Visit your local chapter's homepage for a list of candidates they endorse.

It is time to alter the power base in Washington.

GET OUT AND VOTE!

Your Opinion - Anything LGBT

We want to know your thoughts!

This is an open call for any and all opinions on anything related to LGBT issues. It doesn't matter if you are for or against LGBT rights. It doesn't matter if you agree with or accept LGBT persons or not. We want to hear your thoughts.

Please post your opinion and check back often for responses.

NJ Will Recognize Same-Sex Unions

By a 4-3 vote, the Supreme Court of New Jersey voted in favor of providing the same rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. However, the Supreme Court kicked the decision back to the State Legislature to decide on the term that will be used.

The State has 180 days to decide whether they will call the union a "marriage" or give it some other term like "civil union." But who cares? As long as full rights and benefits are granted, the rest is just semantics.

While a vote of 4-3 in favor of this decision appears to be a split, it's actually quite the opposite. The 3 who voted against the decision did so because they didn't want to kick the semantics decision back to the State. They wanted to make the decision on what to call the unions within their Supreme Court Ruling, and in fact, they argued the Court should give full marriage rights to LGBT couples, including calling such unions "marriages." So in actuality, the decision was a 7-0 vote, with 4 wanting to defer the semantics to the State and 3 wanting to grant full marriage rights on the spot.

Matt Daniels, President of the Alliance for Marriage, is, of course, upset about the ruling. One of his comments was, "They took the future of marriage out of the hands of the people of New Jersey." The future of marriage .... How is it that allowing same-sex unions has any affect on the future of heterosexual marriage other than now marriage is not an exclusive right?

We've been asking this question for a long time. We have yet to hear a compelling response as to how allowing same-sex marriage will have any adverse effect on heterosexual marriage. If anyone has a compelling reason they can offer, we'd love to consider it.

Interestingly, if you visit the Alliance for Marriage website, part of their mission reads, "AFM exists to educate the public, the media, elected officials, and civil society leaders on the benefits of marriage for children, adults and society." Isn't this what we all want?

Another bonus of the NJ Supreme Court decision is the lack of residency requirements on those who seek to get married. The impact could be huge nationwide. Essentially New Jersey has opened the door for couples to travel to NJ, get married and then return to their own state and challenge the laws there. It remains to be seen how significant this will turn out to be.

There are those who would disagree with our assertion that the remaining decision left to Legislature in New Jersey is one of semantics.

Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality told the Newark Star-Ledger, "Those who would view today's...ruling as a victory for same-sex couples are dead wrong. Marriage is the only currency of commitment the real world universally understands and accepts."

We respectfully disagree.