Here are some of the best statements about children and same-sex parents from the judges ruling on marriage equality this year. They made me cheer — and sometimes laugh with delight.
Let’s start by recalling the quote from 2013 that was quoted by many others in 2014, from the U.S. Supreme Court Windsor decision that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act:
[DOMA] humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.
Most judges who ruled on marriage equality this year took that to heart, and had more to add.
1. Arkansas Sixth Judicial Circuit Judge Chris Piazza:
The only effect the bans have on children is harming those children of same-sex couples who are denied the protection and stability of parents who are legally married.
2. U.S. District Court Judge Candy Dale of Idaho:
The link between the [state’s] interest in protecting children and Idaho’s Marriage Laws is so attenuated that it is not rational, let alone exceedingly persuasive.
3. Arkansas U.S. District Court Judge Kristine Baker:
Defendants have not explained how allowing same-sex marriage between two consenting adults will at all prevent heterosexual spouses from caring for their biological children.
4. U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen of Virginia:
Of course the welfare of our children is a legitimate state interest. However, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples fails to further this interest. Instead, needlessly stigmatizing and humiliating children who are being raised by the loving couples targeted by Virginia’s Marriage Laws betrays that interest. E. S.-T. [the 15-year-old daughter of two of the plaintiffs], like the thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples, is needlessly deprived of the protection, the stability, the recognition and the legitimacy that marriage conveys….
The “for-the-children” rationale [of the defendants] rests upon an unconstitutional, hurtful and unfounded presumption that same-sex couples cannot be good parents.
5. 10th U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Lucero:
Although cohabitating same-sex couples are prohibited from jointly adopting children under Utah law as a result of the same-sex marriage ban, the record shows that nearly 3,000 Utah children are being raised by same-sex couples. Thus childrearing, a liberty closely related to the right to marry, is one exercised by same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike, as well as by single individuals.
These laws deny to the children of same-sex couples the recognition essential to stability, predictability, and dignity. Read literally, they prohibit the grant or recognition of any rights to such a family and discourage those children from being recognized as members of a family by their peers.
6. 4th U.S. Circuit Judge Henry Floyd:
There is absolutely no reason to suspect that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize their out-of-state marriages will cause same-sex couples to raise fewer children or impel married opposite-sex couples to raise more children. The Virginia Marriage Laws therefore do not further Virginia’s interest in channeling children into optimal families, even if we were to accept the dubious proposition that same-sex couples are less capable parents.
7. U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman of Michigan:
Even assuming that children of same-sex couples fare worse than children raised by heterosexual married couples, the state defendants fail to explain why Michigan law does not similarly exclude certain classes of heterosexual couples from marrying whose children persistently have had “sub-optimal” developmental outcomes….
In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples.
8. 9th U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt:
[Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho] also states … that allowing same-sex marriage will lead opposite-sex couples to abuse alcohol and drugs, engage in extramarital affairs, take on demanding work schedules, and participate in time-consuming hobbies. We seriously doubt that allowing committed same-sex couples to settle down in legally recognized marriages will drive opposite-sex couples to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.
To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in “family values.”
Defendants’ essential contention is that bans on same-sex marriage promote the welfare of children, by encouraging good parenting in stable opposite-sex families…. Defendants have presented no evidence of any such effect. Indeed, they cannot even explain the manner in which, as they predict, children of opposite-sex couples will be harmed. Their other contentions are equally without merit.
9. 7th U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner:
The only rationale that the states put forth with any conviction—that same-sex couples and their children don’t need marriage because same-sex couples can’t produce children, intended or unintended—is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously….
Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.
10. U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane of Oregon:
The relationship between prohibiting same-gender couples from marrying and protecting children and promoting stable families is utterly arbitrary and completely irrational….
I believe that if we can look for a moment past gender and sexuality, we can see in these plaintiffs nothing more or less than our own families. Families who we would expect our Constitution to protect, if not exalt, in equal measure. With discernment we see not shadows lurking in closets or the stereotypes of what was once believed; rather, we see families committed to the common purpose of love, devotion, and service to the greater community. Where will this all lead? I know that many suggest we are going down a slippery slope that will have no moral boundaries. To those who truly harbor such fears, I can only say this: Let us look less to the sky to see what might fall; rather, let us look to each other … and rise.
