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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 5, 1994                   TAG: 9404050101
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

LESBIAN MOM WAITS AND HOPES

Sharon Bottoms says she never intended to become a symbol of the gay rights movement. She just wanted her baby back, and if that meant telling the world she is a lesbian, so be it.

A year later, she waits with increasing anxiety for a Virginia Court of Appeals ruling in the bitter custody fight with her mother that thrust her into the national spotlight.

She finds it difficult not to think about the case every waking moment.

"I keep myself very busy," Bottoms said in an interview at the suburban apartment she shares with April Wade. "Our house stays very clean. I just do things to try to keep it off my mind."

But scattered throughout the apartment are many reminders: framed photos of 2-year-old son Tyler, a poster-board card from supporters in California stapled to the boy's bedroom wall, a lace doily with an ornate cutout of the child's name on a living room table.

Tyler has lived with grandmother Kay Bottoms since April 5, 1993, five days after a juvenile court judge declared Sharon Bottoms an unfit mother because she is a lesbian. The ruling was upheld by a Circuit Court judge.

Bottoms' appeal was heard in February, and a ruling could be issued at any time.

Richard Ryder, attorney for Kay Bottoms, said she is "getting apprehensive" as she awaits the court's decision. "She wishes the decision would come on down," he said.

For Sharon Bottoms, it has been a difficult year. She has had to answer blunt questions about her sex life, and many people see her as a gay rights standard-bearer, a role the 24-year-old woman finds uncomfortable.

Her relationship with her mother has gone from rocky to "no relationship at all," Bottoms said.

Most of all, though, she has missed Tyler.

"I miss everything about him," Bottoms said. "I miss being a mother the most."

Wednesdays are the worst. Bottoms, who is unemployed, has court-ordered visitation with Tyler from 10 a.m. on Mondays until 6 p.m. on Tuesdays. Tyler's father, Bottoms' ex-husband, is not involved in the child's upbringing or the custody case.

Wade, a 27-year-old health food store manager, is barred from seeing Tyler. Friends take in Bottoms and her son for their weekly visits.

by CNB