Protect Isabella Coalition

Just the other week I noted how the Liberty Counsel had become the right-wing group of choice for lesbians who have since found Christ and decided that their former partners should no longer be able to see their children.

In it, I noted that the group has been representing Lisa Miller in her fight against Janet Jenkins which has now been ramped up with today's announcement of the formation - in conjunction with Concerned Women for America, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), and the Thomas Road Baptist Church - of a new "grassroots" organization called the "Protect Isabella Coalition" aimed at pressuring Virginia legislators to prevent Jenkins from having access to their daughter:

Called the Protect Isabella Coalition, the grassroots effort aims to create awareness of what it labels "judicial tyranny" in the child custody/visitation case involving Miller, Isabella's biological mother, and Vermonter Janet Jenkins, her lesbian former partner. The group has a Web site -- www.ProtectIsabella.com -- and also has produced television and radio public awareness ads.

...

"The road toward justice has taken a long and winding path, but we believe the courts are getting closer to addressing the core issues in this case," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law. "The people of Virginia have plainly spoken in favor of traditional marriage and have rejected same-sex unions. The Virginia courts must now uphold the Constitution."

The Protect Isabella Coalition is asking fellow Virginians to contact their state delegates and senators and ask them to uphold the state's marriage laws, rein in judicial tyranny and stand up for Isabella.

As if to prove that this effort could get even more disgraceful, the coalition's website explains the conflict thusly:

Even the briefest vision of what Isabella could be exposed to with Janet and other live-in lesbian lovers was all she needed to contemplate. Her Christian faith simply would not permit her to send this innocent lamb into what she viewed as a wolves' den.

Lisa denied further visitations while continuing to petition the courts to restore her full parental rights. For her loving maternal protection of her child -- while court rulings were being appealed, mind you, meaning no final decision had been rendered -- she was repeatedly rewarded with contempt of court citations and fines, along with threats of jail time and having Isabella forcibly taken from her, with full custody reverting to the lesbian woman she feared. Is that the way we serve justice in Virginia? Contemptible. Lisa and Isabella Miller have been "thrown under the bus" by the judicial system, for all intents and purposes.

What has been most disturbing throughout this years-long court battle is the apparent lack of concern for Isabella's welfare or representation of her best interests. Only recently did a court-appointed attorney representing Isabella actually testify at a hearing in Vermont that visits with Jenkins would continue to cause severe emotional distress for her. Previously, little had been done in the child's behalf. That testimony carried little weight with a judge who, until the final 10 minutes of the proceedings, gave every indication that he would callously strip custody of Isabella from the only mother she has known -- a Christian, who has a legion of witnesses to affirm her character -- and give it to an unrelated lesbian whose character has been impugned by her own statements.

Virginians, are we going to stand by and allow our innocent children and upstanding citizens to endure this kind of treatment? Please consider getting involved. Spread the word to others.

It also unveiled this ad:

I have to admit that, after so many years of monitoring these groups, I sometimes think they have lost their capacity to shock me ... and then they go ahead and do something as contemptible as this and I am reminded that there is seemingly no level to which they won't sink in order to further their virulently anti-gay agenda.