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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
adequate to make restitution after these not be able to do its job. But children will
rights have been violated. The child’s rights still need secure attachments to their
to care and relationship must be supported mothers and fathers, a need which will go
pro-actively, before harm is done, for those unfulfilled.
rights to be protected at all.
Same sex marriage redefines
Marriage is adult society’s parenthood, as a side effect of redefining
institutional structure for protecting the marriage. Up until now, marriage has made
legitimate interests of children. Without legal parenthood track biological
this public purpose, we would not need parenthood, with adoption for exceptional
marriage as a distinct social institution. situations. The legal presumption of
paternity means that children born to a
We often hear the objection that married woman are presumed to be the
some marriages don’t have children. This is children of her husband. With this legal
perfectly true. However, every child has rule, and the social practice of sexual
parents. Depriving a child of relationships exclusivity, marriage attaches children to
with his or her parents is an injustice to the their biological parents.
child, and should not be done without some
compelling or unavoidable reason. The Same sex couples of course, do not
objection that some marriages don’t have procreate together. So called Marriage
children stands the rationale for marriage Equality requires a dubious move from
on its head. It views marriage strictly from “presumption of paternity” to the gender
the adult’s perspective, instead of from the neutral “presumption of parentage.” This
child’s perspective. sleight of hand transforms the legal
understanding of parenthood. The same
Marriage is not simply a special case sex partner of a biological parent is never
of the market, and family law is not simply a the other biological parent. Rather than
subset of property and contract law. attaching children to their biological
Marriage exists to meet the social necessity parents, same sex marriage is the vehicle
of caring for helpless children, who are not that separates children from a parent.
and cannot be, contracting parties.
Children are protected parties. And, No longer will the law hold that
marriage should protect the interests of children need a mother and a father. In the
both parents in pursuing their common wake of marriage redefinition in other
project of rearing their children. If we states, courts are saying silly things like,
replace this essential public purpose with “the traditional notion that children need a
inessential private purposes, marriage will mother and a father to be raised into
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more interchangeable. Society asserts that
on stereotype than anything else.”1 children do equally well with two mommies,
two daddies or one of each. And when
This statement made by the Iowa mothers and fathers are interchangeable, it
Supreme Court in Varnum v Brien, is false as is fathers who will be pushed aside.
a general statement. Mountains of data
show that children do need their mothers In Canada, where same sex unions
and their fathers,2 and that children care have been legal since 2005, the birth
deeply about biological connections.3 certificates reflect this marginalization of
fathers. Each birth certificate in British
Please don’t change the subject by Columbia has a place to mention the
saying that we already have lots of children biological mother. The second parent is
unattached to their parents. We should be listed as “father or co-parent,” and people
taking steps to place responsible limits on check off whether the “other parent” is the
things like divorce, rather than careening father or co-parent. Fatherhood is officially
headlong into further and more deeply reduced to a check-off box.
entrenched institutionalized injustices to
children. You might object that the birth
certificates are purely symbolic, and that we
Equating same sex parenting with could solve this symbolic problem of
opposite sex parenting will also marginalize marginalizing men on the birth certificates
men from the family. By legalizing same sex by simply recording Parent A and Parent B.
unions, the authority of the government Very well. Suppose we do that. That must
declares that mothers and fathers are mean we would record two individuals as
parents, without taking note of which one
1
Varnum v Brien Supreme Court of Iowa, No. 07– has any biological relationship to the child.
1499, Filed April 3, 2009, pg 54, footnote 26 The theory would be that the genetic
2 connection between the child and one
Among the many citations that could be given,
“Why Marriage Matters: 26 Conclusions from the
member of the lesbian couple for instance,
Social Sciences,” (NY: Institute for American Values,
cannot be permitted to “privilege” her in
2005), summarizes some of the most important any way over the other member of the
research. couple.
3
See Elizabeth Marquardt, Norvell Glenn and Karen This suggestion makes plain how
Clark, “My Daddy’s Name is Donor: A Pathbreaking deeply same sex marriage will alter our
Study of Young Adults Conceived through Sperm social structure. The biological principle of
Donation,” (NY: Institute for American Values, 2010). determining parentage will have to be
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
suppressed, and eventually replaced with of ordinary citizens. This is what “getting
another principle. That principle will be that the state out of the marriage business” will
the state will decide who counts as a eventually come to mean.
parent.
In short, redefining marriage from
We can already see this in disputed the union of a man and a woman to the
custody cases. Courts are awarding union of any two persons jettisons three
parenting rights to individuals who not foundational principles: first, the principle
related to the child, either through biology that children are entitled to a relationship
or adoption. Perfectly fit parents are having with both parents, second, the biological
their parental rights diminished because principle for determining parentage, and
they once had a sexual relationship with third, the principle that the state recognizes
someone.4 When courts ‘eradicate the parentage, but does not assign it.
parent/non-parent dichotomy,’ they must
establish multi-part tests for determining I am often told I am on the “wrong
whether a person warrants the status of side of History.” The justice of “marriage
“de facto parent.” The court ends up equality” is overwhelming; the younger
scrutinizing the minutiae of family life. generation favors it; same sex marriage is
inevitable. But there is ample reason to
Let us be clear: the alternative to doubt this March of History storyline: we
the biological principle for determining were told all these things about abortion
parentage is the principle that the too.
government decides who is a parent.
Instead of simply recording parentage, the “You need to accept Roe v. Wade.
state will determine parentage, not in Abortion is simple justice for women.
exceptional cases, but routinely. This is far Besides, the next generation will completely
too much discretion to allow the family accept abortion. You are on the Wrong Side
courts. Those of you who think like of History.”
libertarians should be particularly alarmed A funny thing happened on the way
by this expansion of the state into the lives to History: the people did not perform as
4
promised. In January 2010, I took a group of
“Court upholds woman’s “de facto” parental
Ruth Institute students up to the West
rights,” Delaware On-Line, April 18, 2011;
Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco. Official
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110419/
estimates place the attendance at over
NEWS01/104190347/Court-upholds-woman-s-de-
35,000. But I wasn’t counting. I was looking
facto-parental-
at the faces. I saw what anyone can see, if
rights?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
they care to look: the pro-life movement is together by a series of contracts among
a youth movement. adults,5 those children will just have more
adults to love them. Divorce, separation,
The average age of the walkers at complex custody quarrels, kids shuttling
the West Coast Walk for Life was probably between four households with their
around late twenties. Toward the front of sleeping bags and backpacks:6 that’s just
the parade were the Berkeley Students for anti-equality hysteria and will never
Life (yes, there is such a thing) and the happen.
Stanford pro-life club, (yes, they exist as
well). Busloads of high school students, But biology will reassert itself. Some
college students road-tripping in from all women who have children with female
over the West Coast, families with small partners will find that sharing the care of
children, babies in arms, backpacks and their children with another woman, is not
strollers. The next generation is not going as easy as sharing the care with the child’s
along quietly with the March of History. father. Some men who agree to be sperm
donors as “friends” will find that they want
And why should they?
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
Let me remind you that a vast
majority of African Americans completely
reject same sex marriage. They are deeply
offended by the high-jacking of the moral
authority of their civil rights movement.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.