LESBIAN COUPLE'S SPLIT LEADS TO CUSTODY BATTLE: From the Rocky Mountain News

In June 1995, Cheryl Clark and Elsey "Zee" McLeod sent an arrival announcement to family and friends.

Their baby, a girl, had been born in the People's Republic of China and lived for six months in an orphanage there, the card read.

"She now lives with two adoring moms," it said: "Zee and Cheryl, in Denver."

But the moms broke up, and the child, now 9, is at the center of a bitter custody dispute that goes far beyond the fractured family. What is usually a private struggle between parents has since become a key battle in Colorado's culture war.

After years spent in litigation, the fight moves to the Colorado Court of Appeals today. Clark, the legal adoptive parent, is trying to end McLeod's visitation rights, while McLeod is fighting to maintain joint custody.

Among the usual, understandable conflicts about health care and holiday time, this case has one more hot button. In an April 2003 ruling, Denver District Judge John Coughlin barred Clark, who has become an evangelical Christian, from teaching her daughter "anything that could be considered homophobic" as part of her religious training.

That has roused several groups to rally round Clark's case, including Rocky Mountain Family Counsel and Liberty Counsel, a national legal group focused on protecting religious freedoms and family values. As a parent, Clark should have the right to condemn homosexuality as contrary to Christian values, they say. ...

Organizations that have rallied to McLeod's side include gay legal groups and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The outcry over Coughlin's order simply covers the "underlying political panic" the critics feel because gay and lesbian parents are being treated equally in some courts, said Julie Tolleson, of Equal Rights Colorado. Custody orders typically say parents mustn't disparage each other in front of the children, she said. ...

As with most couples, Clark and McLeod decided to adopt a child because they wanted a family.

Clark, a psychiatrist, and McLeod, a psychologist, met while working at Fort Logan Mental Health Center, began their relationship and moved in together. The two had a commitment ceremony, a kind of same-sex union recognition that has no legal binding, on July 31, 1993.

After discussing in-vitro fertilization and adoption, the women opted to adopt a girl from China. The adoption agency followed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, as the Chinese government and Colorado forbid adoptions to gays and lesbians. So Clark became the legal adoptive mother.

The child was brought back to the women's Denver home, a nanny was hired and both women cut back on their work schedules. McLeod's name was legally added to the girl's name, Clark changed her will to designate McLeod as the girl's guardian and the women got a joint-custody order in March 1996.

"All these actions work toward protecting our family integrity and, specifically, your relationship, legally, with (the child)," Clark wrote in a letter to McLeod in September 1997. "(The child) needs two parents that she can turn to for comfort and security." ...

But her mothers began to grow apart, and the relationship was strained by September 1997, according to court records. By February 2001, the two broke up, and the custody battle began when McLeod filed for co-parenting time, a term used instead of "custody" in Colorado law since 1998.

In April 2001, a Denver magistrate ordered the women to share parenting time, with each getting three days on, then three days off, with the girl.

By June of that year, Clark began fighting the co-custody, arguing that she was the child's legal parent and McLeod was, legally, a third party, much like a grandparent or relative. ...

Clark lost in Denver District Court in April 2003, when Coughlin "categorically" rejected Clark's contention that McLeod shouldn't be allowed to be the girl's mother. He kept the 50-50 visitation rights in place and said the women must alternate weeks with the girl.

"The minor child loves both women and the child has been nurtured and loved by both women," Coughlin wrote in his order.

Acknowledging the Troxel decision, Coughlin said he must give "special weight" to Clark, the legal parent. But Coughlin went on to write that he also considered "special factors," such as Clark's earlier request to acknowledge McLeod as a co-parent and her agreement to change the child's name to include McLeod's.

"Dr. Clark has participated in creating these special factors. She may not now ask this court to disregard these factors," Coughlin wrote. "To do so would be, without a doubt, to disregard the best interests of the minor child."

Clark appealed the ruling, and McLeod filed briefs defending her status as a "psychological parent." State courts have used the concept since the mid-1990s, citing the Colorado law that says a person who isn't a blood relative can get parenting rights when the person has had physical custody of a child for at least six months. ...

The psychological-parenting doctrine is not exclusive to Colorado. In what is considered a watershed case for nonbiological gay parents, a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in April 2000 gave the former partner of a lesbian mother visitation rights to the twins she had helped raise since birth.

The New Jersey high court said psychological parenthood is established when:

• The legal parent consents to the relationship between the nonbiological or nonlegal parent.

• The psychological parent has lived with the child.

• The psychological parent cared for the child.

• The child and the psychological parent have bonded or forged an attachment.

Up until that ruling, courts didn't recognize "de facto parents," said Leslie Cooper, an attorney with the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project in New York.

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