Joseph Price [co-council, Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins]: "The four-year long Miller-Jenkins custody case is the first case to test whether a state like Virginia that has passed laws (and amended its constitution) to make clear that it will not recognize same-sex legal unions from other jurisdictions, will nevertheless enforce court orders, judgments and decrees from other jurisdictions, like Vermont, Massachusetts and California, that arise out of same-sex legal unions.

Happily for gay and lesbian couples, the Virginia Supreme Court's decision makes clear that Virginia will enforce the Vermont court's orders despite the fact that the Vermont orders may have been premised in some part on a Vermont civil union. While critics of legal recognition of same-sex unions lament the decision and proclaim that Virginia is being forced to accept liberal Vermont values, in fact the unanimous Virginia Supreme Court decision simply maintains the careful balance created by the U.S. Constitution that allows states to makes their own laws but requires them to also honor the legal decisions of their sister states.

If Virginia's Supreme Court had disregarded the Vermont court's order as inconsistent with Virginia values, it would have been a clear invitation to any person unhappy with a legal decision based on their civil union or same-sex marriage to run to Virginia to escape the decision, just as Lisa Miller tried to do in the Miller-Jenkins case. For example, a gay couple with children divorcing in Massachusetts might get a decision deciding custody and division of marital property. If either of the divorcing partners didn't like the Massachusetts's court's decision, he could simply flee to Virginia where the order would be null and void if the Virginia Supreme Court had ruled differently.

Instead, the Virginia Supreme Court's decision precludes this by properly holding that Vermont's orders, whatever their basis, are and will be enforced in Virginia. By reaching this decision Virginia's Supreme Court has also ensured that gay and lesbian parents – and their children – will be treated just like heterosexual parents and their children, ensuring equal justice under the law."