Pastor Convicted in Parental Kidnapping Case

New York Times – by Erik Eckholm, August 14, 2012

After only four hours of deliberation, a federal jury in Burlington, Vt., found an Amish-Mennonite pastor guilty of abetting international parental kidnapping in a widely publicized case involving same-sex unions and conservative Christian opposition to homosexuality.

The pastor, Kenneth L. Miller of Stuarts Draft, Va., could face up to three years in prison. He was convicted of helping Lisa A. Miller flee to Nicaragua with her daughter, Isabella Miller-Jenkins, in September 2009 to evade court-ordered visits with Ms. Miller’s former partner in a civil union in Vermont.

After the verdict, about 100 of Mr. Miller’s supporters from the Beachy Amish-Mennonite sect, the women in traditional long dresses and head scarves, gathered outside the courthouse to sing “Amazing Grace” and other hymns.

After splitting up with the former partner, Janet Jenkins, in 2003, Ms. Miller, who is not related to Mr. Miller, declared herself a born-again Christian, denounced homosexuality, soon began interfering with visits and tried to strip Ms. Jenkins of her legal rights as a parent. Ms. Miller moved to Virginia and, in 2009, as a frustrated Family Court judge in Vermont threatened to transfer custody of the girl, disappeared with her daughter.

The Beachy Amish-Mennonites regard homosexual behavior as a sin.

In the trial, Mr. Miller’s lawyer, Joshua M. Autry, did not dispute the evidence that Mr. Miller had helped arrange for Ms. Miller and her daughter to fly from Canada to Nicaragua and obtain shelter from missionaries in his sect. But Mr. Autry argued that Mr. Miller did not realize that Ms. Miller was defying any court orders at the time of the flight.

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