Lisa Miller

In January of last year, Lisa Miller fled the country, likely to Central America, with her daughter Isabella after refusing to obey a court-ordered custody arrangement that gave custody to her former partner Janet Jenkins. A Mennonite pastor was recently arrested in connection with the kidnapping, and the Associated Press reports that Miller “appears to have had the support in the Mennonite community outside [Nicaragua’s] capital of Managua.” Andrew Harmon of The Advocate reports that the charges against the pastor, Timothy Miller (no relation), have now been dropped as he has agreed to cooperate with the kidnapping investigation:

In a stunning development, government attorneys have dropped charges against a Mennonite missionary accused of aiding in the kidnapping of a young girl at the center of a high-profile child custody case.

Though the reason for the decision is not yet clear, documents filed in federal court late Friday indicated that Timothy “Timo” Miller, who was arrested in April and later charged with aiding and abetting in the international kidnapping of Isabella Ruth Miller-Jenkins, is cooperating with the ongoing investigation.

…

In the Friday order, U.S. Attorney Tristram J. Coffin dismissed the grand jury indictment against Timo Miller in the kidnapping.

“In light of Timothy Miller’s role in the international parental [kidnapping], and his agreement to cooperate with the investigation of the United States government, including an agreement to return to the United States and to provide truthful testimony as requested in any proceedings in this matter, further prosecution is not in the interests of the United States at this time,” the order, signed by Coffin and U.S. district judge Christina M. Reiss, read.

…

Lisa Miller entered into a Vermont civil union with Jenkins in 2000, one that ended in 2003. Following the break-up, she moved to Virginia with Isabella, joined an evangelical church, and began reading books on ex-gay reparative therapy. Miller was later represented in custody proceedings by the social conservative legal group Liberty Counsel, but was ordered to transfer full custody of Isabella to Jenkins after she repeatedly refused to grant her former partner court-ordered visitations. Liberty Counsel attorneys Mathew D. Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen have said that they have not had contact with Miller since her disappearance and did not advise her to break the law, the New York Times reported earlier this year.

According to the April FBI affidavit, Victoria Hyden, an administrative assistant at the Liberty University School of Law, had been asked by her father "to disseminate a request to get Lisa Miller supplies" in Nicaragua, where she and her daughter had allegedly been staying at a beach house owned by Hyden’s father. Liberty Counsel has offices on Liberty University’s Lynchburg, Va. campus.

Last week we mentioned that Rena Lindevaldsen had written a book about the case of her Lisa Miller, who kidnapped her daughter and fled the country rather than abide by court ordered custody arrangements that conflicted with God's law.

We ordered a copy and have been reading through it and Lindevaldsen dedicates the entire second chapter to explaining how people become gay.  She begins the chapter by admitting that she is not trained as a doctor or psychologist ... and then proceeds to explain how people become gay due to poor relationship with their parents and/or sexual abuse:

For men with temperaments that predispose them to same-sex attractions, two key factors are (i) the lack of a strong father-son bond, and (ii) same-sex abuse as a child. For women, two key life factors are (i) the lack of a healthy relationship between mom and dad and (ii) sexual abuse (primarily opposite-sex) as a child ...

Picture for a moment, a boy who is artistic, sensitive, talkative, and, as is frequently the case, not very athletic. Now imagine that his father has made clear that he had dreamed of having a boy that would be a star athlete. At some point, in some way, the father conveys his disappointment to his son, either expressly or implicitly - perhaps the father doesn't spend time with this son or takes no interest in his son's more artistic interests. The son soon realizes that he hasn't lived up his father's expectations and that he's different (since the kids at school also make fun of his interests and personality.) It doesn't take long before the son wishes he could be more like his father. Soon, the desire to be more like his father leads to the son idolizing other boys and men who have all the characteristics he believes that he is lacking. In essence, he idolizes all that he thinks he is not. As he gets older, the feeling change from idolizing to a longing to be close with men - to be attracted to them. From the son's perspective, he hopes that having a sexual relationship with a man he perceives to be all that he is not will fill the void in his life, will make him feel whole, but it does not ...

You can change the fact pattern many ways, including a loving father who works such long hours in an attempt to provide for his family that he doesn't take the time, or even know how, to express signs of affection for his son. Unfortunately, the boy misperceives the lack of attention as feelings that his father does not love him, that he does not measure up to what he should be. If a boy who is dealing with these feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt is sexually abused by an older man, it could send him more quickly down the path of struggling with same-sex attractions - finally he has a man in his life who cares for and loves him; finally, he feels wanted. To a young boy dealing with self-esteem and identity issues, same-sex sexual abuse only compounds the struggles with same-sex attractions.

Lindevaldsen goes on to explain that women become lesbians because of domineering mothers and abusive fathers, coupled with a society that celebrates things like Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl."

We've only made it about half-way through Lindevaldsen's book, but there are surely more good excerpts to come as future chapters on "Helping Others Make The Choice To Leave The Homosexual Lifestyle," "How Homosexuality Impacts Our Children," and "Understanding How The Homosexual Rights Movement Affects You And Your Loved Ones" seem to contain lots of promising material.

Oh, and it is probably worth pointing out that Lindevaldsen maintains a blog at OnlyOneMommy.com.

Back in May Sarah Posner reported that, at the height of the Lisa Miller saga, her attorneys at Liberty Counsel were teaching Liberty University law students that anyone in Miller's situation had an obligation to ignore the law and engage in "civil disobedience" in order to uphold God's law.

So when Miller subsequently kidnapped her daughter and fled the country, it seemed rather suspicious, to say the least, especially since Miller was reportedly living in a vacation home owned by the father of a Liberty Law School employee ... but Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel continue to insist that they had no involvement and have no idea where she is:  

The lawyer for Miller's ex-partner, Janet Jenkins, told the FBI she got a call in June 2010 from someone — she won't say who — who told her that Lisa Miller and the girl had stayed in a beach house in coastal San Juan del Sur, about 68 miles south of Managua.

The house is owned by Philip Zodhiates, the father of Liberty University law school administrative assistant Victoria Hyden, according to the FBI. Jenkins' attorney, Sarah Star, told the FBI that the caller told her Zodhiates had asked his daughter to put out a request for supplies for Lisa Miller.

Located in Lynchburg, Va., Liberty University was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. An affiliate of the university, conservative Christian law firm Liberty Counsel, formerly represented Miller in her court case in Vermont over custody of the girl.

Law school dean Mathew Staver — who leads Liberty Counsel — has said Zodhiates isn't affiliated with either.

"From our perspective, she just dropped off the face of the Earth. We haven't heard from her or from anyone who said they've heard from her," Staver said of Lisa Miller.

The AP reports that Miller has become a Mennonite and is being sheltered and protected by Mennonite missionaries Nicaragua who see it as their duty to help "Lisa not only free herself from the so called civil marriage and lesbian lifestyle, but especially to protect her nine year old daughter from being abducted and handed over to an active lesbian and a whole-hearted activist."

For over a year now we have been covering the story of Lisa Miller, who kidnapped her daughter and fled the country rather than abide by court-ordered custody arrangements with her former partner, Janet Jenkins.

From the very beginning, when Miller began attending Jerry Falwell's church and renounced homosexuality, she has been represented by Mat Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen at Liberty Counsel while the were simultaneously serving as Dean and Associate Professor, respectively, of the Falwell-founded Liberty University School of Law.

Ever since Miller disappeared, Staver and Lindevaldsen have insisted that they have no idea where she went and had nothing to do with her disappearance - a position they continue to maintain even after an FBI affidavit claimed that Miller and her daughter were living in a house in Nicaragua owned by the father of an administrative assistant who works in the Liberty Law School office.

Now, Sarah Poser of Religion Dispatches sheds even more light on this story with a great piece revealing that Staver and Lindevaldsen have been using Miller's case in the Foundations of Law course they teach at Liberty Law School ... and been teaching students that the "right" thing for a lawyer in case such as this is to counsel their client that they have an obligation to ignore the law and engage in "civil disobedience" in order to uphold God's law:

Students at Liberty Law School tell RD that in the required Foundations of Law class in the fall of 2008, taught by Miller’s attorneys Mat Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen, they were repeatedly instructed that when faced with a conflict between “God’s law” and “man’s law,” they should resolve that conflict through “civil disobedience.” One student said, “the idea was when you are confronted with a particular situation, for instance, if you have a court order against you that is in violation of what you see as God’s law, essentially... civil disobedience was the answer.

This student and two others, who all requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by Staver (who is also the law school’s dean), recounted the classroom discussion of civil disobedience, as well as efforts to draw comparisons between choosing “God’s law” over “man’s law” to the American revolution and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. According to one student, in the Foundations course both Staver and Lindevaldsen “espoused the opinion that in situations where God’s law is in direct contradiction to man’s law, we have an obligation to disobey it.”

...

That semester’s mid-term exam, obtained by RD [see excerpts of the actual exam here], included a question based on Miller’s case asking students to describe what advice they would give her “as a friend who is a Christian lawyer.” After laying out a slanted history of the protracted legal battle, the exam asked, “Lisa needs your counsel on how to think through her legal situation and how to respond as a Christian to this difficult problem. Relying only on what we have learned thus far in class, how would you counsel Lisa?”

Students who wrote that Miller should comply with court orders received bad grades while those who wrote she should engage in civil disobedience received an A, the three students said. “People were appalled,” said one of the students, adding, “especially as lawyers to be, who are trained and licensed to practice the law—to disobey that law, that seemed completely counterintuitive to all of us.”

Still, some knew what they needed to “regurgitate,” in order to get a good grade. “It was obvious by the substance of the class during the semester the answer that they wanted,” said one of the students. “The majority of people that I am acquainted with who did get As wrote that because that was expected of them.”

One of the students who got an A said, “I told them she needed to engage in civil disobedience and seriously consider leaving the country,” adding, “I knew what I needed to write.”

Given what was expected of them on the exam, and the tenor of the class, there is “not a lot of shock among the students about the current developments,” said one of the students, referring to the revelation that Miller is in hiding in Nicaragua. “Everybody semi-suspected that Liberty Counsel had something to do with her disappearance.”

So if Staver and Lindevaldsen were teaching students at LU that the proper course of action for a lawyer in a case like this was to counsel their client to ignore court orders, it seems logical to wonder just what sort of counsel Staver and Lindevaldsen were giving to Miller before she kidnapped her daughter and fled the country.