CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY ation. “ He assumed that a woman stays home and cleans her house,” she says. “ He had no concept of how difficult it is for a woman to work and take care of five kids.” Because Joan Brown’s success in court relied to a large extent on her ability to show that her lesbianism did not detrimentally affect her ability to be a good parent for her children, her case was greatly aided by the expert testimony of Dr. Christine Arthur, a psychiatrist who had several consultations with various members of the Brown family during the dissolution process. Dr. Arthur has served as an expert witness in several lesbian custody cases because of her long experience in treating lesbians and their children. She believes that the main components of being a good parent are: relating to the child on her/his own level; loving the child for who she/he is; being with the child when she/he is sick or under stress or anxiety; and providing for the child’s basic physical needs. She believes that being a lesbian or gay man does not decrease a person’s ability to be a good parent, and stated that Joan had shown herself able to provide more of the components of being a good parent than Ed had. Dr. Arthur also addressed the question of whether there is any increased chance that a child raised in a lesbian or gay household will grow up to be lesbian or gay. “ Good scientific studies have not been done on this, but preliminary studies concur with my own personal clinical experience that the majority of children being raised in homosexual homes are heterosexual,” she said. “ The heterosexual children being raised in homosexual homes are being raised without anxiety around that point and are developing normally and indistin- guishably from the control group.” Arthur believes that sexual orientation is developed out of a multitude of factors, only one of which is the orientation of people to whom a child is exposed. Testifying in other court cases, she has expressed the opinion that if the parents of a child are comfortable in their sexual preference and that if the child is comfortable with asking questions about sexuality, it would pose no particular problem to the child. “Many of the children understand that other adults do not approve of homosexual behavior, yet the children accept this in their own parents,” she says. She draws an analogy with the situation of a child of black parents knowing that black people are not always welcome in all sectors of society, yet accepting their own parents. Dr. Arthur also testified, on the basis of her consultations with Joan Brown’s husband Ed, that he did not provide for the basic needs of the children, even on a financial level, since he had no job and no plans to earn a living. “ Ed Brown told me that he felt the best arrangement would be for him to have the house and the children, and to receive child support from Joan and welfare,” she stated. She also said that he was emotionally unstable, giving as an example his “ grossly inappropriate reaction to social agencies concerned with the case, writing long, rambling letters about lesbians.” She said that he was confused about his own sexual identity, calling him a “ borderline personality.” This testimony was crucial to Joan Brown’s case because, English believes, “ Lesbians do not and will not win unless evidence shows that the father has some characteristic rendering him unfit as a parent.” Judge Lenon was evidently impressed by the testimony, since he stated clearly in his closing remarks that he did not consider either parent fit to have custody of the children. Why, then, did he split custody between them, instead of depriving both parents of custody and appointing the state as guardian? More particularly, if Judge Lenon does indeed have a moral prejudice against lesbians, why did he grant Joan custody of her three younger children? “ I think Judge Lenon realized that Joan is unfit in his personal opinion only, which is affected by his personal prejudice,” explains English. “ He applied the legal standard that the children must be shown to be adversely affected by the lifestyle of the parents in order to deprive him or her of custody, and I don’t believe any evidence was shown of this. “ He knew that if he denied custody to Joan, we would appeal the case asking if lesbianism was the sole ground by which he determined Joan to be unfit. But he couldn’t resist inserting his personal opinion of her unfittedness in his remarks.” English adds that she has the highest opinion of Judge Lenon as a judge and that she was confident that he would make the right decision in spite of his personal feelings. Joan Brown’s victory sets a precedent in the community and encourages other gay parents to struggle for custody. It also has important legal implications in that it may influence future cases of this nature. While it is not technically correct to call the case a precedent, since it was won in the lower court, it is useful for attorneys to cite to other judges faced with lesbian custody cases. “ Judges don’t want to make threatening decisions where they risk being overturned by a higher court,” explains English. “ If an attorney is able to cite other instances in which lesbians were granted custody of their children, the judge is likely to be more comfortable in deciding in favor of lesbian mothers.” However, English stresses that Joan’s victory by no means indicates that the courts are becoming more progressive on the issue of homoi i i i i i i t i l i i i i i i i i i i i i i i in i i i i i i i im H i i i i i i t i i i i i i in u n it i i i i i iu : The Judge's Dilemma The judge’s dilemma may be clearly seen in another lesbian custody case which was decided several years ago. Judge Norman B. Ackley, of the Superior Court of King County, Washington, granted two lesbian lovers, Sandy Schuster and Madeline Isaacson, custody of the six children of their previous marriages. In doing so, Judge Ackley received widespread attention from the national press and generated much correspondence, both negative and positive, regarding the decision, m e case was heard in the summer of 1974, and his law clerk, who began working the following October, recalls that he was still receiving a great deal of mail concerning that case. The law clerk, George Haynes —■who is now an attorney in Seattle — mentioned a number of very hostile, emotional responses. Not all of them were articulated as criticism of the decision per se, but Haynes felt some — religious materials, pictures of coffins, and cut-outs from magazines — were veiled threats. He could not estimate the volume of correspondence received because, “ it all went into the |w astebaske t,” he said. “ Judge S Ackley was never concerned about | whether his decisions were popular f o r unpopular, and once he was i = satisfied that he had made the best decision he could, he let the chips fall where they may.” sexual lesbian and gay custody cases. “ All this shows is that individual judges, in individual courts, may make a fair decision,” she says. “ Custody decisions are often arbitrary. 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