PHILIP ZODHIATES, a Virginia businessman, last week became the second man convicted of kidnapping charges in the case of Lisa Miller, who fled with her seven-year-old daughter to Central America in 2009 when a family court gave sole custody of the child to her former lesbian partner, who was represented by attorneys for the militant homosexual organization, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU.

Zodhiates drove Miller from Virginia to western New York; she traveled from there to Canada. As a result, he faces up to eight years in prison. An Anabaptist minister, Kenneth Miller, is now serving a 27-month sentence for also allegedly helping Miller flee. He refused to testify in the Zodhiates case in Buffalo last week and was charged with contempt of court, for which he could face additional jail time.

To sum up the case, Lisa Miller is a fugitive because she initially did not want her daughter, Isabella, to be in contact with Janet Jenkins, a woman who had neither legally adopted her daughter or had any biological ties to her, and because she subsequently faced complete loss of custody to Jenkins. Lisa Miller’s court appeals of the custody decision were denied and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear her case. In reality, the family courts were the attempted kidnappers.

Miller and Jenkins were involved in a civil union in Vermont when the child was born. An anonymous sperm donor was the father. Miller became an Evangelical Christian when the child was a baby and left the relationship. She went to Virginia, which did not recognize homosexual unions, and became friends with the Mennonite family of Kenneth Miller there. Jenkins had never adopted Isabella and had no consistent relationship with her since she was a toddler. She was granted sole custody after Lisa Miller had violated visitation orders that required her to take Isabella to Vermont from her home in Virginia to periodically stay with Jenkins.

The case is the subject of a book, Only One Mommy, by Rena Lindevaldsen. Here is an interview from 2008 with Lisa Miller. It’s a messy story of two disturbed women in the teeth of the homosexual rights movement and wider cultural forces intent on destroying the ties between natural parents and their children. According to Lisa Miller, her daughter was disturbed by her visits with Jenkins. Rarely dwelt on in accounts of the case is the fact that Isabella’s father is a nameless donor.

Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins

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