HECK: The misguided practice of homosexual family law

The consequences of which is a reshaping of society.

By Peter Heck

The story is both heartbreaking and infuriating. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council recently wrote a column telling this painful account that is being completely and totally ignored by the mainstream press.

Lisa Miller, a Virginia woman, is the mother of a beautiful 7-year-old girl named Isabella. Isabella was the product of artificial insemination, meaning that her biological father was an anonymous sperm donor making Lisa her only known biological parent.

At the time Lisa had Isabella conceived in her womb, she was practicing homosexuality with a woman named Janet Jenkins. For the first year of Isabella’s life, Lisa and Janet maintained a relationship, even traveling to Vermont to obtain the legal recognition known as a “civil union.” As time went by, however, Lisa began to realize that her effort to find fulfillment in sexual depravity wasn’t working. She began to attend a Christian church again and soon decided to end the relationship. She and her biological daughter then moved back to Virginia where Lisa has raised her for the last six years.

Initially, Isabella was taken to Janet for visitation, but many times would return from those trips emotionally distressed, confused and sometimes experiencing severe anxiety. Concerned for the well-being of her daughter, Lisa ended the visitation sessions with Janet … and set into motion a series of events that prove the backwards and radical nature of the homosexual lobby.  

It also proves the utter foolishness behind the notion advanced by the homosexual movement that a person’s identity should be defined by their chosen behaviors. The fact is that homosexuality is what a person does, not who a person is. And failing to understand that has tragic implications for both the family and society at large.

Because the state of Vermont gave into the bullying tactics of the homosexual political agenda, it wrote utter nonsense into its law that is now upending any rational approach to the Lisa-Janet-Isabella saga. Vermont’s highest court has ordered that Lisa surrender Isabella to the authorities, who will then give custody to Janet as the rightful parent.

As Sprigg wrote, “The very legal principle on which Janet rests her claim to Isabella has historically been described as the ‘presumption of paternity’ (i.e., fatherhood). It absolved men and women from having to legally prove what was almost always true anyway — that the father of a child born to a married woman is her husband. Now, the same principle is asserted to support something that can never be true since a female partner can never be a father. A usually true legal assumption (the presumption of paternity) has been twisted into a complete legal fiction.”

It’s interesting how “civil unions” are always portrayed as the happy middle ground in the battle over same sex marriage. Even some pro-family advocates are willing to accept the legitimacy of civil unions as some sort of victory for them since they stop short of conferring the semantic title of “marriage” upon homosexual partners. And yet, this tragic story involving the innocent Isabella demonstrates that “civil unions” are not effective compromises, but rather weapons used by social activists to assist in their ongoing struggle to undo cultural norms and moral standards through legal confusion.

Consider also that Janet’s attorneys are attempting to use the 1980 Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act to benefit their client. The PKPA was enacted to prevent a disgruntled parent who lost a custody hearing from taking a child into another state to try to get a different custody ruling. In other words, this law was intended to prevent a rightful biological parent from having a child taken. Yet, thanks to what the homosexual lobby has accomplished, this law is now being twisted into a tool to do exactly what it was intended to prevent.

When Hollywood portrays or the mainstream media reports on those practicing homosexuality, they paint a picture of normalcy that does not exist, and they engage in grotesque mischaracterizations that equate sexual behavior (that is always a choice) with genetic identity (that is never a choice). The consequence is a fundamental reshaping of society – families reconstituted, laws rewritten, mores restructured.

Despite the propaganda campaign to portray homosexuals as passive victims and those with traditional moral values as aggressive oppressors, the “gay rights” movement is seeking this very type of cultural revolution. But don’t take my word for it. Paula Ettelbrick, the former legal director for the homosexual Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said, “Being [gay] is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so … Being [gay] means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society.”

Indeed it does. And little girls like Isabella have their lives ruined in the process.

• Peter Heck hosts a talk show on WIOU-AM 1350 and is a weekly contributor to the Kokomo Tribune. Contact him at peter@peterheck.com.

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