The National Organization for Marriage is once again insulting the adoptive relationships of parents who do not have a biological connection with their children. Jennifer Thieme of NOM’s Ruth Institute wrote recently that banning same-sex marriage is the “compassionate choice” for children, ignoring the millions of children already being raised by same-sex couples. In an attempt to raise alarm about what will happen if heterosexual couples no longer have special recognition on government paperwork, Thieme cites the tragic case of Lisa Miller, who embraced an ex-gay identity and kidnapped her daughter away to Central America to prevent her ex-partner, Janet Jenkins, from having legal guardianship:
Conservatives, and libertarians for that matter, should be extremely alarmed at the change from gendered marriage to genderless marriage. How many have heard the story of Lisa Miller, the bio mom who lost custody of her bio daughter to her former lesbian lover due to their civil union? The lover is not related to the child by blood or adoption, and this did not matter to the judge who made the ruling. Lisa escaped with her daughter to Central America. Her name appears on the FBI and INTERPOL Wanted Lists for parental kidnapping, and the Amish pastor who helped her escape has been convicted of “aiding an international parental kidnapping of a minor.” He might be looking at three years jail time.
Lisa’s biological connection to her own daughter was disregarded in favor of a public policy aimed at promoting equality. The objective, natural, and pre-political reality lost, and the subjective, artificial, and state defined reality won.
The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer has also defended Miller, suggesting there should even be an “Underground Railroad” to kidnap children away — or “escape,” as Thieme writes — from same-sex parents. Both NOM and AFA are so concerned with preserving the special status of heterosexuality that they would abandon the welfare of the children in these cases. Society, through laws and courts, has an obligation to maintain secure, intact families for children in cases of adoption, surrogacy, foster care, same-sex relationships, and even step-parent situations. Prioritizing a biological relationship over keeping a child connected to her home and her parents — whoever they may genetically be — is the very opposite of a “compassionate choice.”