LESBIAN . . . AND A FIT PARENT, COURT RULES

A lesbian regained custody of her son in a Virginia State verdict that could make sexual orientation less relevant to parental fitness. An appeals court judge returned 24-year-old Sharon Bottoms' 3-year-old son a year after another state judge decided she was an unfit mother because she and her live-in lover engaged in oral sex. The judge in the earlier case called the act a "crime against nature." That ruling sent the child to his maternal grandmother Kay, who now plans an appeal. "I think it's a tragedy . . . to put him back in that environment," Kay Bottoms' lawyer told the press. Gay-rights attorneys, such as the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund's Evan Wolfson, said the case chisels away at a legal edifice in conservative states that assumes gay relationships harm children. "This court is an example to other courts as to how to limit bad precedents," Wolfson says.