WINCHESTER -- A judge has dismissed a woman's latest attempt to deny visitation rights to her former lesbian partner.

Judge John R. Prosser of Frederick County Circuit Court yesterday dismissed Lisa Miller's request to halt efforts to enforce a Vermont court's orders granting Janet Jenkins visitation with the daughter born to she and Miller in April 2002. Prosser agreed with lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that lower courts and the Virginia Supreme Court already had ruled in Jenkins' favor.

Prosser remanded the case to the county juvenile and domestic relations court for enforcement of the Vermont orders.

ACLU attorney Rebecca Glenberg said Miller's lawyers were trying unsuccessfully to relitigate the case, attempting an "end run" around the state Supreme Court decision.

Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University's law school, said his client plans to appeal the case, arguing that Virginia courts shouldn't enforce Vermont's custody orders because of a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage and the enforcement of same-sex civil unions.

Jenkins has been fighting for visitation rights since the dissolution of the civil union she and Miller obtained in Vermont in 2000. The legal battle is closely watched by national conservative and gay-rights groups.

Miller renounced homosexuality and moved back to Virginia with now 6-year-old Isabella after the couple split, and she has fought Jenkins' visitation efforts. However, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in June that a federal law aimed at preventing parents from crossing state lines to evade a custody ruling requires Virginia courts to enforce Vermont's order.

The Virginia Court of Appeals twice ruled in favor of Jenkins. Miller's attorneys missed a deadline for appealing the first ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court, so they filed a second appeal on different grounds. The appellate court ruled that the second case raised no new issues, and the Supreme Court agreed. In 2006, the Vermont Supreme Court also ruled in favor of Jenkins.