Virginian Pilot Editorial Slams Lisa Miller

To my shock and amazement, the Virginian Pilot's main editorial today takes Lisa Miller (and by implication her Christianist attorneys and ex-gay "ministries" that are assisting her) to task for her defiance of court orders - both from Virginia and Vermont courts to turn custody over to Janet Jenkins. The editorial in fact argues that Miller has forgotten the best interest of her daughter and needs to be held accountable. Needless to say, the local holy rollers will be wetting themselves and going into convulsions over the editorial. I can hardly wait for some of the reality untethered letters to the editor that will likely follow. Here are some editorial highlights:

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Isabella Miller-Jenkins is not an abstract political principle or a religious creed. She’s a little girl whose seven short years have been marred by the chaos and uncertainty of a custody battle that has gone tragically awry. Thousands of children each year are torn between warring parents, but Isabella’s suffering has been prolonged because the two adults fighting over her are both women whose civil union dissolved into a national debate over gay rights.
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It is difficult to imagine a life more traumatizing than the one Isabella has had, and Miller bears much of the blame for her daughter’s pain. . . . Miller chose to move to Vermont because that state recognizes civil unions. She later fled to escape those same laws but only after she invoked them by filing for dissolution of her union and acknowledging Jenkins’ parental rights.
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Now, Miller has disappeared from her Virginia home with her daughter in a final reckless act of defiance. Isabella faces months or years of displacement and anxiety as a fugitive. She may one day visit her mother behind bars if Miller is apprehended and convicted for contempt.
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Yet Miller is convinced she is protecting Isabella, a belief encouraged by attorneys wanting to use the child as a test case to challenge laws in states that recognize same-sex civil unions or marriage. Liberty Counsel, a group affiliated with Liberty University’s School of Law, has pursued the case for years after Miller’s financial resources were tapped out.
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The result has never been in question. Miller has repeatedly violated court orders and ignored the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, which prohibits a parent who is unhappy with a child-custody ruling in one state from seeking a second opinion elsewhere.
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In a 2005 interview, Miller described “bargaining with God” to end her lesbian relationship if her efforts to have a second child failed. Miller says she has been born again, but that does not free her from the consequences of her actions. One day she will have to face her past.