Still seems bizarre that it would happen in the first place.

Thanks for the timeline correction.

And a parent whose other partner took the child away so the other parent would never have the opportunity to. And despite their best and most reasonable effort, the parent who took the child engaged in extraordinary and extreme behavior to keep the other parent and child separate, with help from outsiders to do so.

Had Janet Jenkins been a MAN, they would have been encouraged and supported in the effort to be a parent.
And not having a biological connection to that child, also makes the anti gay engage in a double standard of requiring ONLY biological parents to matter.
Which would leave adoptive and step parents in legal limbo, regardless their interest and experience in raising their non biological child.

This issue with Miller/Jenkiins is what makes this all similar to the way SLAVES in America and THEIR relationships were treated.
Black slaves couldn’t marry, and their familial interest or connection in their children was constantly under siege or subject to disruption at any time.

No decent Christian would or should engage in such cruel regression and disrespect for the parent/child relationship because of what the parent WAS, not their treatment of the child.

That any people could feel so comfortable and go to such lengths to be cruel to Janet Jenkins, is scary and awful and no legal entity should support child kidnapping to that degree just to spite gay people.
It’s not like the child isn’t and couldn’t be harmed by it. And apparently THAT doesn’t matter either.

It is possible, on Fb, to click on the auto-generated description and edit it to something more appropriate.

TRiG.

There is also a long history of anti-gay sentiment and action. In general the Mennonites who are most active in the peace movement aren’t the ones who are strongly anti-gay. But I can understand how the pastor involved could arrive at the conclusion that aiding the run-aways was equivalent to aiding the Central American refugees that moved through the U.S. on their way to Canada in the ’80′s and early ’90′s. Obviously I think the reasoning is faulty, but I can see how he could have arrived there believing that he was firmly within his faith tradition.

As for now trying to win his freedom on a technicality, I suspect that is a tactic suggested by his lawyer. It would not be consonant with the ethic of civil disobedience, which says that you knowingly break an unjust law with the intention of accepting the consequences of your actions and that your only defence is the assertion that the law itself is wrong.

Not that it really changes anything, but they didn’t raise Isabella together for “years.” She was born in 2002, and I think Lisa scooted down to Virginia with her about a year later. According to Lambda Legal, she “filed an action in circuit court in Virginia seeking to have herself declared the child’s sole legal parent” in July of ’04.

This case has dragged on for virtually all of Isabella’s life to date, which I find very sad.