TheProgressivePatriot
Gold Member
What a conundrum.
I want children, but I'm gay. SMH
Obergefell: A Victory for Children | Stanford Law School
The Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (and three other cases) is obviously a landmark decision of enormous importance to gay individu
law.stanford.edu
In his opinion, Justice Kennedy cites as one of the major reasons “for protecting the right to marry is that it safeguards children and families…. By giving recognition and legal structure to their parents’ relationship, marriage allows 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…. Marriage also affords the permanency and stability important to children’s best interests…. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers … children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser…. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.”
The total switch in the understanding the interests of children is a major factor in the dramatic shift in judicial treatment of same sex couple relationships (it is less than fifteen years since laws criminalizing these relationships were declared unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas). How did this change occur?
Finally, over the past thirty years, many states have allowed, even encouraged, gay individuals to become foster and adoptive parents; this was true of several of the plaintiffs in the current cases. From both research and case examples, it is clear that these children do very well. Moreover, as Justice Kennedy stated, the fact that states allow adoption and foster care by gay couples “…provides powerful confirmation from the law itself that gays and lesbians can create loving, supportive families.” A state allowing adoption by gay couples can hardly claim that such parenting is bad.