Judge Again Rules Against Lesbian Mom

According to the Associated Press, Circuit Judge Buford M. Parsons Jr. increased visitations between Bottoms and her son, Tyler Doustou, allowing visitation to begin earlier on Christmas Day and extending summer visitation to two weeks instead of one. But the judge kept in place his prohibition of visitations between the boy and his mother whenever Sharon Bottoms's partner, April Wade, is present.

Parsons gave no explanation for the ruling - which comes after an appeals court ordered the judge to reconsider his earlier order banning Wade from seeing the child. The appeals ruling was issued on the grounds that it was wrong to bar contact solely on the basis of Wade's sexual orientation.

"I don't seen anything in the order explaining the basis of the ruling," said Donald K. Butler, the lawyer for Bottoms, according to the AP report. "This ruling is, in essence, the same ruling that he made before."

Kent Willis, director of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the AP that Parsons's ruling is "an outright defiance" of the appeals court order.

Bottoms lost custody of her son in a highly publicized 1993 court battle, when a juvenile court judge ruled that Bottoms is an unfit parent because she is a Lesbian and awarded custody to her mother, Kay Bottoms. Parsons upheld the order, saying that Sharon Bottoms's sexual behavior is illegal and immoral and that her conduct "renders her an unfit parent."

The state appeals court reversed the decision in 1994, and a divided Virginia Supreme Court later reinstated it, upholding the original ruling that Bottoms is unfit because her Lesbianism would "inevitably afflict" her child.

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