Well, it's elements of all of the above, in varying mixes depending on the circumstance. But it's primarily emotional, I think, which is what makes adoptive and blended families work so very specially — and which is what makes NOM and the AFA and other conservative groups shrill defense in the Lisa Miller so abominable. Because it makes some sort of biological connection the trump card in all parenthood, regardless of whatever other connections exist. It makes parenthood into some sort of genetic ownership, which is just not right in so many ways.
Speaking of "just not right", NOM's press screed here is fundamentally flawed:
'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.'
Lisa Miller's problems didn't occur because some judge wanted to take away her baby to give it to some random lesbian woman. The two women had entered into a civil union in Vermont, Miller had a child through artificial insemination during that civil union. Then the two dissolved their union. The judge in the case granted primary custody to Miller, with visitation rights to her former partner, Janet Jenkins.
Miller then got religion and moved to Virginia, which doesn't recognize out-of-state civil unions (one of the many problems with marriage laws in this country). She refused to grant visitation to Jenkins. She got a court order in Virginia making her the sole parent of the young girl — but Jenkins appealed and noted that federal law did require Virginia to comply with the orders of a Vermont family court. Virginia agreed, and ordered visitation rights.
Miller again fought this legally, refusing to grant visitation for three years, until the Vermont family court ordered custody be given to Jenkins — not out of some sort of political correctness, but because Miller was breaking the law by defying court orders in both Vermont and Virginia. At which point Miller fled the state and (it's believed), the country.
A bit different from NOM's characterization, don't you think?
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NOM Defends Child Kidnapping Because Of A Parent’s ‘Biological Connection’
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 Institut…
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And of course nothing like this has ever happened in “traditional” families, which are all sweetness and light and without rancor or animosity, right?
Well, they would be, if Satan and the homosexualists and the feminists weren’t messing with our precious bodily fluids!