Rhode Island Lawmakers Approve Marriage Lite

It's not real marriage, but an incredible simulation, kind of like Beatlemania. Lawmakers in the miniature New England state of Rhode Island voted Wednesday to legalize Civil Unions. Governor Chaffee has said he intends to sign the bill into law.

While queer activists and churchy types bitch and moan about religious exemptions, my advice to both parties is to take your circle jerk to the nearest highway rest area where it belongs.

I've made it clear on numerous occasions that I believe Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships are a separate and unequal status for gay and lesbian couples that are nothing more than the government issuing an official statement that we are not good enough and are undeserving of equal protection under the law.

That's all I have to say on the subject. Rhode Island is so small that you could sneeze and drive right past it. I would suggest to anyone living in that mob-run, micro-state who wants to get married for real that they drive the extra ten minutes to either Vermont or Massachusetts and get it done right.

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Arrest in Ex-Gay Child Abduction Case Has Ties to Liberty University

It's been a while since we heard anything new about the child abduction case involving the daughter of Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins. The couple were civilly unionized in Vermont in 2000, then split up in 2003, when Miller decided she wasn't a lesbian any more, moved to Bedford, Va. and joined the ex-gay movement in nearby Lynchburg.

Upon dissolving the union, a Vermont judge awarded joint custody of the women's daughter Isabella to Jenkins, which Miller refused to honor, resulting in the court awarding full custody to Jenkins. Miller fought the case in Virginia, where there is no legal recognition of same-sex relationships. The Vermont ruling was upheld by the Virginia court, which ordered Miller to surrender custody of the child to Jenkins on January 1st, 2010.

Miller was a no show at the custody exchange and went into hiding with the couple's daughter, prompting a federal kidnapping charge and an international search for the two.

MSNBC reported Friday via the AP on the arrest of a Tennessee pastor who allegedly helped the mother and daughter flee the country.

MONTPELIER, Vt. — A Tennessee pastor who allegedly helped a woman abscond to central America with her 9-year-old daughter has been charged with aiding a kidnapping, the latest twist in a long-running custody dispute between former lesbian partners.

Timothy David Miller, 34, of Crossville, Tenn., is accused of helping to arrange passage for Lisa Miller of Virginia and daughter Isabella Miller Jenkins, who have been on the run since 2009 and now are believed to be living in Nicaragua.

It doesn't appear that Timothy Miller is related to the mother. He works with an Ohio-based Christian ministry and people with links to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University may have provided a beach house where the two could live, according to an FBI affidavit.

"I know very little at this point, but I really hope that this means that Isabella is safe and well," said Lisa Miller's former partner, Janet Jenkins, of Fair Haven. "I am looking forward to having my daughter home safe with me very soon," she said in a statement released by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which has provided legal help to her.

Parental kidnap aid alleged Timothy Miller, described by the FBI as a pastor in an Amish-Mennonite church, is charged with aiding in international parental kidnapping, which carries a potential three-year prison term. He's accused of providing Lisa Miller and the girl with travel assistance and a place to live outside the U.S.

Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin expands on the Liberty University connection.

Page 9 of the complaint shows that at least part of the airline tickets were “approved by Timothy” and the cardholder was Elaine R. Cooper, of Brethren, Michigan. Cooper is the adoptive mother of Timothy Miller’s wife. They made travel arrangements through a Christian travel agency, Golden Rule Travel. The agent who made the arrangements was Linda Rose Miller. Lots of Millers in the mix, although the FBI’s affidavit notes that no biological relationship has been established between the travel agent and Lisa Miller, or between Lisa Miller and Timothy Miller.

But here is where the web gets interesting. On Page 15 of the complaint, Philip Zodhiates, a wealthy “Liberty Leader,” owns a beach house in Nicaragua where Lisa and Isabella had been staying. He had requested that his daughter, Victoria Hyden, “disseminate a request to get Lisa Miller supplies.”

And who is Victoria Hyden?

She’s an administrative assistant for Liberty University’s School of Law’s financial aid department.

To complete the web further, Mat Staver, head of Liberty Counsel, is also the dean of Liberty’s School of Law. Lisa Miller’s lawyer, Rena Lindevaldsen, Miller’s attorney at Liberty Counsel, is also an Associate Professor of Law at Liberty University.

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Arrest Warrent Issued in VT for Ex-Lesbian Mom

Former lesbian Lisa Miller, who failed to turn over custody of her daughter to her ex-partner on January 1st, as ordered by a Rutland, VT judge, is now officially a fugitive.

Metro Weekly reports:
A family court judge in Vermont Tuesday issued a warrant for the arrest of former lesbian Lisa Miller who disappeared with the child she once shared with her former civil union partner, Janet Jenkins.

Judge William Cohen, a judge in Rutland County, Vermont, ruled February 23 that Miller was in contempt of the Vermont court for failing to turn over custody of the daughter to Jenkins on Jan. 1, as ordered.

According to one of Jenkins’ lawyers, Sarah Star, the judge’s order is essentially an arrest warrant for a misdemeanor. Jenkins must now hope that the state’s attorney in Rutland will seek to file felony criminal charges against Miller. If he does, law enforcement officials in all 50 states, she says, will be empowered to arrest Miller and hold her on $50,000 bond.

Just last week, Judge Louis Harrison, a family court judge in Bedford, Virginia, said he could not issue an arrest warrant for Miller because he could not be sure Miller was aware of the Vermont judge’s order.

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Ex-Lesbian Mom on the Run with Daughter

More embarrassing news from the comedy-wealth of Virginia. It seems a lesbian couple, Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins, who got civilly unionized in Vermont in 2000, went through an extremely uncivil divorce in '03, when Miller found Jesus and decided she wasn't gay any more. The wrinkle here is that Miller got pregnant via artificial insemination after the union was formalized, resulting in a daughter who is now at the center of a bitter custody battle.

In 2003, after the couple broke up, Miller fled from blue Vermont to redneck Virginia in order to avoid the shared custody ordered by the Rutland County, Vermont court. Miller now considers rug munching sinful and doesn't want her daughter raised by a sister of Sappho. The court found that Jenkins should be awarded primary custody in light of Miller's refusal to allow visitation by her former spouse.

In a surprising twist, when the legal battle spilled over into Virginia, the courts here repeatedly found in the favor of honoring the Vermont court's decision. The child was to be turned over to Ms. Jenkins on January 1st.

Rather than submit to the custody order, the born again ex-lesbian decided it was better to go into hiding with the child and is now on the lam. Miller has not made contact her her attorneys for over a month. Her whereabouts remain unknown.

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