Americans for Truth

Josh Baker of the Institute of Marriage and Public Policy (iMAPP) writes:

After a busy month of May, June was a fairly quiet month for marriage-related cases and law review articles. The June 2008 Marriage Law Digest, edited by Bill Duncan, is now available at http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/MarriageLawDigest.June2008.pdf.

Concerned Women for America Press Release, June 6, 2008:

Washington, D.C. — The Virginia Supreme Court temporarily avoided locking horns with the state of Vermont today. The Commonwealth’s highest court did not rule on the merits of a case which would have determined whether Virginia will respect the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Virginia’s Marriage Affirmation Act (MAA), and Virginia’s own constitution, or whether it will allow the state of Vermont to redefine marriage and family in the Commonwealth.

The Vermont Supreme Court had granted Janet Jenkins, the former lesbian partner of Lisa Miller, parental rights over Miller’s daughter Isabella, even though Jenkins has no relationship to the little girl and is neither an adoptive nor a biological parent.

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National Organization for Marriage California

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 15, 2008

CONTACT: Elizabeth Ray (x130) or Mary Beth Hutchins (x105), 703-683-5004

NOTE: The California Supreme Court decision is available on the court’s website at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS PROP 22

“National Organization for Marriage-California Will Lead the Fight to Protect Marriage this November,” vows NOM-CA Executive Director Brian Brown

SAN FRANCISCO – The California Supreme Court released its decision today overturning Proposition 22, which had defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

“Thanks to the more than 1 million Californians who signed petitions, these out-of-touch California judges will not have the last word on marriage,” says Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage California (NOM-CA), “California voters will.”

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Concerned Women for America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 15, 2008

FOR MORE INFORMATION: NATALIE BELL

(202) 488-7000, ext. 126

California Supreme Court Betrays “We the People” on Marriage

Washington, D.C. — Today the California Supreme Court imposed, through judicial fiat, so-called “same-sex marriage” on Californians, thus totally disregarding the sanctity of marriage and the will of the people. In 2000, Californians adopted Proposition 22 to protect marriage and maintain its definition as a union between one man and one woman, and expressly prohibiting the state from recognizing “same sex marriages.”

NOTE: the California Supreme Court decision is available on the court’s website at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF

To ensure that marriage is protected and the voice of the people is heard, a constitutional marriage amendment must be placed on the November ballot and national efforts need to be made to generate a federal constitutional marriage amendment. The decision must be removed from the hands of judicial activists and returned to the rightful hands of the people.

Matt Barber, CWA Policy Director for Cultural Issues [Barber is on the Board of Americans For Truth], said “The California Supreme Court has engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism today, abandoning its role as an objective interpreter of the law and, instead, legislating from the bench. It’s absurd to suggest that the framers of the California state constitution could have ever imagined there’d be a day when so-called ‘same-sex marriage’ would even be conceptualized, much less seriously considered. If anyone then had suggested the ridiculous notion, early Californians would have laughed their smocks off.

“So-called ‘same-sex’ marriage is counterfeit marriage. Marriage is, and has always been, between a man and a woman. We know that it’s in the best interest of children to be raised with a mother and a father. To use children as guinea pigs in radical San Francisco-style social experimentation is deplorable.

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What will happen if California’s highest court imposes “gay marriage”?

The quotation below was sent to us by Gary Glenn of American Family Association of Michigan. Homosexual activist Wayne Besen, author of Anything But Straight, describes the chaos that would result if California’s highest court were to mandate homosexual “marriages.” Rather than create public sympathy to rectify alleged anti-homosexual “discrimination,” as Besen hopes, we think the ensuing confusion would only heighten citizens’ awareness of the crisis caused by the homosexual lobby and arrogant, social-engineering courts.

Only a Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) would establish a national standard preserving the historic institution of marriage as one-man, one-woman — perhaps in name only if current trends continue. California becoming a “gay marriage” state would certainly breathe new life into the FMA. However, another cultural/legal/political battle would follow over “civil unions,” which — far from being an acceptable compromise — are merely another tactic advancing the “gay” activists’ goal of putting government power and authority behind homosexual couples and the creation of unnatural “families.” And as the people of Massachusetts and Vermont know well, lots of bad things (e.g., more pro-homosexual indoctrination in schools, curtailment of moral freedoms) flow from state-sanctioned homosexuality.

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Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues at Concerned Women for America (and Board Member or Americans For Truth), has requested prayer for Lisa and Isabella Miller, whose tragic case will be heard before the Virginia Supreme Court this Thursday, April 17. Lisa Miller is a born-again Christian who abandoned the lesbian lifestyle. As Matt writes, “this hearing will determine whether a lesbian woman who is Lisa Miller’s former partner will share custody of Isabella, Lisa’s daughter. The woman is neither an adoptive parent nor is she biologically related to Isabella. In fact, she’s a total stranger to the little girl. Isabella, who is now 6-years-old, hadn’t seen this woman since she was 17-months-old. This case could have national ramifications and will help decide whether state’s like Vermont and Massachusetts get to export their radical new definitions of marriage and family around the country.”

Please pray for justice and protection of this innocent child. You can commit to praying for the Millers at www.cwfa.org/millersign.asp. Below is Matt Barber’s original column on this sad situation:

You’re Not My Mommy!

By J. Matt Barber

This article was published by CWA on August 1, 2007:

The person trying to take Isabella away from her mother is entirely unrelated to the little girl and is essentially a total stranger.

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This month iMAPP (Institute for Marriage and Public Policy)  in conjunction with the Marriage Law Foundation, is announcing a new monthly e-publication, the “Marriage Law Digest.”

Edited by Bill Duncan, the Marriage Law Digest aims to provide readable summaries of key legal opinions affecting marriage and family life in the U.S., with links to the opinions themselves where possible.

Each month, the Marriage Law Digest will be available (free) online at www.marriagedebate.com. You can download this month’s edition here. If you don’t care to receive an e-mail notice when iMAPP’s Marriage Law Digest is published each month, please reply to joshua@imapp.org and indicate “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

But I think and hope you’ll find it as useful as I do each month.

Best,

Maggie Gallagher
Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (iMAPP)

The following is excerpted from a column by Matt Barber, “You’re Not My Mommy!” appearing in today’s WorldNetDaily: 

Jesus said, “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mark 10: 6-8, NKJV).

Virginia resident Lisa Miller – now a born-again Christian – and her beautiful 5-year-old daughter, Isabella, find themselves immersed in a nightmarish custody battle. But this battle is unlike most others. The person trying to take Isabella away from her mother is entirely unrelated to the little girl and is essentially a total stranger. She’s lesbian Janet Jenkins, a woman with whom Lisa at one time had been homosexually involved.

By her own account, emotional problems brought on by a series of events – including abandonment by her father, abuse by her mentally ill mother and a decade-long struggle with alcoholism now overcome – eventually led Lisa Miller into the lesbian lifestyle. In 1999, Lisa began a homosexual relationship with Jenkins after coming out of a legitimate marriage that ended in divorce.

In 2000, soon after Vermont became the first state to legalize homosexual “civil unions,” Miller and Jenkins made a weekend trek from Virginia to Vermont to enter into such a “union.” They then headed back to Virginia where they lived together.

In 2001, Lisa was artificially inseminated after the two decided to raise a child in an unnatural, deliberately fatherless home environment as self-deluded “wife” and “wife” – mother and “mother.”

In August of 2002, Miller and little Isabella, now just a few months old, moved to Vermont with Jenkins. However, things were unstable, and according to Lisa Miller, Jenkins was physically and emotionally abusive. “It was a troubled relationship from the beginning,” Lisa told World Magazine in a recent interview. “The relationship did not improve, as Jenkins – working as a nightshift security guard – grew increasingly bitter and controlling,” reported World.

About a year later, when Isabella was less than a year and a half old, Lisa ended her lesbian relationship, took her daughter back home to Virginia and filed for dissolution of her homosexual “civil union” back in Vermont.

And that’s when the nightmare really began.

Although Jenkins had no parental connection to Isabella (she was neither an adoptive parent, nor biologically related) she filed papers in Vermont in 2003 to try to take Isabella from her mother. Even though the child was conceived, born and living in Virginia, the Vermont court nonetheless held that it had jurisdiction. The legal battle has continued since that time, and incredibly, the court recently ruled that Jenkins possessed parental rights over Lisa’s daughter. It granted Jenkins regular and very liberal visitation. Isabella is now required to make the several hundred mile roundtrip journey from Virginia to Vermont every other week to visit a total stranger (Jenkins) who, according to reports, outrageously forces the confused and traumatized little girl to call her “momma.”

Click HERE to read the rest of Barber’s column on WorldNetDaily