
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 17, 1994                   TAG: 9409210054
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

LESBIAN MOTHER

TYLER DOUSTOU is 3 now. His mother has been fighting for half his life to get him back. That fight should end, for her sake and for his, soon.

But that appears unlikely. Tyler's mother, Sharon Bottoms, is a lesbian who lost custody of her son to her mother, who does not approve of her daughter's lifestyle.

There is no evidence that Sharon Bottoms' unconventional choice of a sexual partner has had any negative effect on Tyler. But her mother, Kay Bottoms, found it loathsome and that was negative enough for her.

In this she was joined by a Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge and a Circuit Court judge, who each strangely ruled, in turn, that Tyler should be taken away from his mother. In June, the Virginia Court of Appeals wisely reversed them, ruling that the Circuit Court had erred in finding Sharon Bottoms an unfit mother solely because of a homosexual relationship.

Mother and child were not reunited, however. Grandmother appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court, which this week denied Sharon's request for custody pending the state high court's decision. It also refused to expedite the case.

Years are a long time in the life of a child Tyler's age. The wheels of justice grind slowly, they say. Sometimes so slowly as to deny justice in the delay.

by CNB