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

DATE: FRIDAY, December 30, 1994                   TAG: 9412300125
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

ACLU FILES LESBIAN'S APPEAL

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed an appeal brief on behalf of Sharon Bottoms, who lost custody of her son because she lives with her lesbian partner.

Nineteen national and state groups also have filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Virginia Supreme Court, which will decide whether the boy will be raised by Bottoms or his grandmother, Kay Bottoms.

Kay Bottoms is appealing a June ruling by the state Court of Appeals that ordered 3-year-old Tyler Doustou returned to his mother. While the Supreme Court appeal is pending, Tyler continues to live with his grandmother, in keeping with lower court rulings that labeled Sharon Bottoms an unfit parent because of her homosexuality.

The friend-of-the-court briefs submitted on Sharon Bottoms' behalf include a 17-page brief from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and a 19-page brief from the Virginia Women Attorneys Association.

``It would be a grave error for this court to lay down a principle that a parent involved in a homosexual relationship is ... unfit to have custody of her child and to award custody to a nonparent solely on that basis,'' the attorneys' association brief said.

But Richard Ryder, who represents Kay Bottoms, argued in his appeal brief, filed Dec.2, that Sharon Bottoms is unfit for reasons unrelated to her homosexuality. He pointed to testimony during the September 1993 custody trial in Henrico Circuit Court, when Sharon admitted that she lost her temper with Tyler on two occasions and hit him hard enough on the leg to leave a hand print.

by CNB