Janet Jenkins shows a picture of her daughter to reporters after a Tuesday court hearing at which an arrest warrant was issued for her ex-civil union partner, Lisa Miller, who has disappeared with the girl Rutland Herald photo by Vyto Starinskas

The Vermont judge overseeing a long-running child custody dispute issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for one of the two women who were granted a divorce in his court.

Rutland Family Court Judge William Cohen issued the warrant for Lisa Miller who moved to Virginia with the couple’s daughter after her civil union with Janet Jenkins was dissolved in 2003, Rutland Herald reports.

Since the divorce, Miller has refused to comply with multiple orders from Cohen requiring her to allow Jenkins to visit with their daughter, Isabella. Virginia courts have upheld Cohen’s orders.

In November, Cohen ordered Miller to give custodial custody of Isabella to Jenkins. Miller did not show up for a scheduled Jan 1 transfer of custody.

After the divorce, Miller claimed to have become an evangelical Christian and  to have “renounced” homosexuality. She disappeared with the Isabella after Cohen ordered her to transfer custodial custody of the girl to Miller.

Cohen’s arrest warrant could be enforced only if Miller is found in Vermont.

“It seems like an exercise in futility,” said Miller’s attorney, Stephen Crampton, who appeared in court by phone. “It seems least likely that Ms. Miller will be found within the purview of this court's jurisdiction.”

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Flickr photo by barman6

A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the state of Louisiana to issue an amended birth certificate for the child of two men who adopted a Louisiana-born baby boy in 2006. The state must put the names of both fathers on the new certificate, New Orleans Times Picayune reports.

The adoptive parents, Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith, who now live in San Diego, were living in Connecticut when they obtained an emergency adoption decree in New York state court to adopt the baby who was born in Shreveport, La. in 2005. The baby’s mother had transferred him to Adar and Smith’s care shortly after the boy’s birth.

“We’re pleased our son will finally have a birth certificate where he sees both his parents included,” said Adar, through his attorneys. “A birth certificate is more than a piece of paper; it’s at the heart of your identity.”

The ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a 2008 ruling by US District Court Judge Jay Zainey. He ordered the Louisiana Office of Public Health and Vital Records and registrar Darlene W Smith to supply an amended birth certificate for the boy that shows Adar and Smith as his parents, Courthouse News Service reports.

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell appealed Zainey's decision, arguing that state law wouldn’t have allowed such an adoption in the first place.

The Vital Records office claimed that it would have supplied a birth certificate if just one of the parents had been listed in the New York record as adopting the boy.

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Wayne LaRue Smith (left) and his partner Daniel Skahen help their adopted son with his homework Miami Herald photo by Carl Juste

Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) agreed Tuesday to provide state benefits to the adopted son of a Key West gay man, Miami Herald reports.

In August of 2008 a judge in Key West struck the first blow to Florida’s 1977 statute that forbids adoption by gay men and lesbians. Monroe Circuit Judge David J. Audlin signed a 67-page order declaring the law unconstitutional. Audlin's order cleared the way for a Key West lawyer, Wayne LaRue Smith, to adopt a boy he had been raising in foster care.

Since then, two other judges have also declared the adoption ban unconstitutional. One of those cases is now under appeal, and is now under review by a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeals.

For technical reasons, DCF did not appeal Audlin’s ruling, but they have refused to provide Smith’s son with standard benefits offered to children adopted from the state’s care. Those benefits include health insurance and college tuition, the Herald reports.

On Tuesday, however, DCF lawyers did an about-face and agreed in writing to provide the benefits package.

Smith told Miami Herald reporter Carol Marbin Miller that his son is now getting the same benefits offered automatically to other children who are adopted from the state foster-care system.

“It means, finally, after 10 years, he gets what every other child in the same circumstance gets just by asking,” Smith said.

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Vanessa Alenier and Melanie Leon with their adopted 1-year-old son Miami Herald photo by Barbara P. Fernandez

For the third time in just over a year a Florida judge has approved an adoption by a gay or lesbian couple, ruling that the state’s outright ban on adoptions by such couples is “unconstitutional on its face”, Miami Herald reports.

A state appeals court is now reviewing an appeal of an earlier ruling that the ban is unconstitutional, but—as Herald reporter Carol Marbin Miller writes, the latest ruling “suggests some state court judges already have made up their minds about gay adoption, a thorny political issue in a state with a significant social conservative streak.”

Shortly after the child’s birth on Jan. 14, 2009, and with the approval of their extended family, Vanessa Alenier and Melanie Leon took custody of an infant relative who had been seized by child welfare workers.

“We knew we wanted to be parents, both of us,” Alenier told the Herald. The infant “was a family member. We couldn’t say no. We strongly wanted to be a family.

“It’s the most amazing thing that ever happened to us,” Alenier said. “It’s changed our lives.”

With little publicity, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia approved the adoption in an order signed earlier this month. The Herald this week obtained a copy of the order.

“The child is happy and thriving with [Alenier]. The only way to give this child permanency … is to allow him to be adopted” by her, Sampedo-Iglesia wrote in her order.

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Flickr photo by Geoff Mock

Having concerned and involved parents matters for children. The gender of the parents doesn’t matter, according to a new study.

Multiple studies indicate that children raised by two same-gender parents do as well on average as children raised by two different-gender parents, US researchers say.

“That a child needs a male parent and a female parent is so taken for granted that people are uncritical,” said one of the researchers in a statement about the study.

Sociologist Timothy Biblarz of the University of Southern California and Judith Stacey of New York University spent five years analyzing the results of 81 studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents, and lesbian parents. They published the results of their investigation Friday as the lead article in the Journal of Marriage and Family. [Journal article available by subscription.]

“The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting,” said Stacey, according to Toronto Star. “Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter.”

The studies they reviewed show that there are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian and heterosexual parents, Biblarz and Stacey write in the article.

“The upshot of the study is something that should be common sense, but instead there is this enormous belief in the significance of gender. Bottom line: What matters is good parenting,” said Stacey in a statement.

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Janet Jenkins is sworn in as a witness Friday at a family court hearing in Rutland, VT Rutland Herald photo by Vyto Starinskas

A family court judge in Rutland, Vermont declined on Friday to issue an arrest warrant for a mother who has refused to comply with his custody orders, but said he would consider harsher actions if Lisa Miller does not appear before him by Feb. 23, when another hearing is scheduled.

“At that point, I will consider all possible sanctions under the law,” said Judge William Cohen. “But first, I will give Ms. Miller an opportunity to comply.”

Cohen said giving Miller an opportunity to come forward would also give her an opportunity to confer with her lawyers, who claimed in court that they haven’t heard from their client in months, Rutland Herald reports.

Miller, who now lives in Virginia, has refused to abide by visitation orders issued by Cohen directing her to allow her former civil-union partner Janet Jenkins, to visit the couple’s daughter who was born while Jenkins and Miller were joined in a Vermont civil union. Courts in both Virginia and Vermont have upheld the visitation orders issued by Cohen, who oversaw the dissolution of the couple’s union.

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