Rachel Burg and her ex-partner Donna Ellis with their two children in happier times. The children’s faces have been blurred to protect their identity. A Florida judge recently dismissed Ellis’ lawsuit for visitation rights and financial reimbursement.
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By PHIL LaPADULA
Friday, January 06, 2006
Donna Ellis was an active mother, engaged in nearly all aspects of her two daughter’s lives.
She was at her partner’s side at the baptism of the youngest girl at the Joy Metropolitan Community Church in Orlando. She coached the oldest girl’s little league team for six years. As a member of the PTA, she frequently attended school functions. She attended the youngest girl’s dance recitals.
“I have 16 DVDs from their birthdays and Christmases,” Ellis said.
But Ellis’ life as a mother came to a halt in March 2002 when her partner, Rachel Burg, decided to end their nine and a half year relationship. Under Florida law, Ellis is not recognized as a parent to the children, despite the years of helping to raise them.
In December, Orange County Circuit Judge Janet Thorpe dismissed Ellis’ case for financial reimbursement for the money she spent on the family. Earlier, Thorpe had dismissed Ellis’ request for visitation rights to see the girls, who are now 13 and 7. The names of the girls are being withheld because they are minors.
Ellis’ lawyer is now preparing to appeal the case to the 5th District Court of Appeals.
In a court deposition, Burg, who is the biological mother of both children, repeatedly referred to Ellis as a “roommate” even though she conceded that the couple had an intimate relationship and shared expenses, such as buying a house and cars together.
Ellis said she has been left out in the cold after bearing an equal parenting burden for years.
“I spent more than $180,000 in 10 years on the girls,” Ellis said. “If I was just a friend, why would I spend that much money on someone else’s children? I had no legal protection because Florida is so backwards.”
Ellis met Burg in 1993 while the two were working as nurses on the pediatric floor of Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando. Burg had a daughter from a heterosexual marriage that ended in divorce. Burg and Ellis planned the artificial insemination birth of the youngest girl together, Ellis said. They even chose a friend of Ellis’ as the sperm donor, according to court documents.
Ellis would have agreed to be inseminated, but she has rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, she said. So the couple decided to pick a donor whose physical characteristics were similar to Ellis’.
“That’s why [the youngest girl] looks like me,” Ellis said.
In her court deposition, Burg said she and Ellis never discussed Ellis playing a parenting role in the younger child’s life.
“I always told her she would never be a mother, and there was no way she would ever adopt the children,” Burg said in the deposition.
After the breakup, Burg said she took out a court injunction against Ellis “because she was stalking my children and myself.”
“She followed us to the grocery store,” Burg said in her deposition. “She followed us around department stores. She showed up at their schools. She showed up anywhere we were—a friend’s house.”
Ellis denies that she ever stalked Burg and the children.
In the deposition, Burg said she doesn’t want Ellis in the children’s lives “because I think she’s a bad influence. She doesn’t discipline. She doesn’t use good judgment.”
Ellis thinks Burg may have been uncomfortable with living a gay lifestyle. She noted that, before the breakup, Burg was being promoted at her job as a nurse manager with the Cancer Centers of Florida and that may have put more pressure on her to conform to society’s norms. According to Ellis, in early 2002, Burg came home from a business trip and said, “I can’t live this life anymore.”
“It seemed like she was not happy with herself and ashamed of her lifestyle,” Ellis said.
But when Ellis’ attorney asked Burg if the gay relationship had caused her any discomfort, she replied, “No.”
Ellis thinks the main reason Burg has cut her out of the girls’ lives is because she is jealous of her relationship with them. Ellis said the last time she kept the girls in October 2002, “the youngest didn’t want to go home. She wanted to stay with me.”
“I think she felt that they loved me more than her,” Ellis said. “But kids love unconditionally.”
In the deposition, Burg denied that she had any feelings of jealousy regarding Ellis’ relationship with the youngest girl.
David Roberts, Burg’s lawyer, said Burg is acting in what she believes is “the best interests of the children.”
Ellis’ lawyer, Michael Morris, said he plans to appeal both the visitation and financial reimbursement issues.
“The bottom line is that Florida doesn’t allow gay couples to adopt,” Morris said. “If it did, this family would have been recognized.”
Morris said it might have made a difference if Ellis and Burg had signed a co-parenting agreement. He said it is possible that the state would recognize such a document because it recognizes domestic partnership agreements.
He conceded that similar custody cases have been unsuccessful in Florida courts, but he said it has been several years since a case like Ellis’ was brought in Florida.
“The last similar case was in 1997,” Morris said. “The law evolves.”
He noted recent court victories in similar cases in California, Washington state, Maine and Pennsylvania.
Karen Doering, an attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said activists should focus on lobbying the state legislature to change the law to recognize non-biological parents.
“It’s the kids who are being harmed by our government’s refusal to recognize that same-sex couples are raising kids in Florida,” Doering said.
Ellis said she just wants to be part of the children’s lives. Being apart is not only hard on her, she said, “it’s bad for the girls.” They’re going to have so many abandonment issues when they grow up.”
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