Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court created a legal right for same-sex couples to quote-unquote marry. And just a little over a decade since, the Obergefell v.
Hodges ruling has proven to be among our nation's most consequential and harmful decisions, especially for kids. To borrow a phrase originally written about Roe v. Wade, the Obergefell decision is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be. Instead, it rather invented a right it then mandated on the nation. Even so, courts and government officials ever since have treated Obergefell as if it accomplished far more than it actually did.
In Obergefell, the court asserted that civil marriage is not the procreative union of husband and wife it's always been assumed to be, but instead a government device to give benefits to adult companions.
However, numerous courts since have ruled that Obergefell required states to also give same-sex partners legal access to and custody of children otherwise not theirs. Among the most consequential of those cases include McLaughlin v. Jones, Boquette v. Boquette, Henderson v. Box, Potts v.
Potts, et cetera. Since same-sex couples cannot procreate, advocates demand access to reproductive technologies in order to satisfy the demands of same-sex couples for children.
So children are bought and sold through IVF and surrogacy. Mothers are rented for their wombs. Fathers reduced to sources of genetic material. Human connection is manufactured and not created through meaningful relations. The family is drained of its profound nature as God intended, as well as both its historic significance and legal authority.
While the court may not have intended this anti-human techno-regime that has resulted from Obergefell, it did leave wide open the legal questions. Rather than merely expand marriage to include other relationships as we were told it would, Obergefell rejected marriage as God designed it and as it has always been understood to be. Lawmakers and judges, not to mention educators, business leaders, consumers, and even professional athletes, were all strongly pressured to succumb to this brand new vision.
However, there are still ways that officials can honor the natural family and resist hostile innovations against it. A simple step is for states to simply maintain original birth certificates, the kind that record the child's mother's life. And father, and exclude persons who are neither. States can also settle child custody contests with a default rule in favor of fit natural parents and against genetic strangers. States can enforce already existing adoption laws requiring the non-natural mother or father of the child to adopt before being considered a legal guardian or parent, rather than in explicitly creating an exception only for same-sex couples.
In many states, however, the essential questions about who is a parent simply have not been carefully addressed. Even worse are those states in which they have been misinterpreted to favor non-traditional family arrangements. Two years after a Bergerfeld disrupted the institution of marriage, the court ruled in Pavin v. Smith that birth certificates no longer needed to show the genealogical mother and father. The intent was to allow same-sex partners to be named parents of the child born, even though one or both of them may not be related to or even have an adoptive relationship with that child.
Even worse, to keep up with the emerging gender ideologies, numerous courts ruled it unconstitutional to presume the husband of the woman giving birth to be the natural father. or to presume he's even a man at all. All of this was, of course, simply a way to enable same-sex couples to acquire children. And not only does this deprive children of their mother, father, or both, but according to several studies and a growing number of horror stories that we're reading about, children raised by same-sex couples are at increased risk of harm. Though lower courts continued to accommodate progressive ideals of sex, marriage, and gender, the fact remains a Bergefeld did not address how states should treat paternity or legitimacy or custody or adoption requirements or birth certificates.
The court majority in Aberge did not cite or even evaluate even one single state law on any of these issues. Even if it had, the Supreme Court has no authority to invalidate historic state laws without ever having had a case before it on such specific questions. Normally the court would evaluate each statute and then rule on the case. In other words, Obergefeld did not and could not topple historic state laws about the makeup of family that were not presented, briefed, argued, or even identified in the proceedings. Similarly, the Aubergefeld decision does not raise or resolve the question of a child's relationship to his mother and father.
And yet, because of a Bergefell, subsequent rulings have, for the first time in the history of the world, treated laws that protect children as unconstitutional. Elected officials have every reason to refuse the ousting of venerable family law standards and to reinstate those that have been set aside. Decisions like Obergefell not only normalize certain legal interpretations, more importantly, they reshape the cultural imagination.
Now millions of Americans, including so many Christians, believe and live as if Obergefell has somehow quote unquote settled the question of same-sex marriage. It did not, and we must not think that it did. There's far too much at stake, especially for children. To learn more about how to center the rights and well-being of children in conversations about marriage, family, and society, check out the work of the Greater Than Campaign. It's a coalition of leaders, ministries, and citizens committed to protecting children.
Learn more at greaterthancampaign.com. That's greaterthancampaign.com. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Colorado is at it again, trying to silence free speech. A law in Colorado forces businesses to use customers' preferred pronouns, even if they're biologically inaccurate, and even if using those incorrect pronouns would violate a person's religious beliefs or conscience.
That's a violation of free speech, but as Colorado has proved time and again, it has little concern for the First Amendment. At Alliance Defending Freedom, we're challenging the law on behalf of a Christian bookstore and a Colorado-based sports apparel company. But a court recently ruled against them. With ADF's help, they appealed the ruling, and they'll continue fighting to ensure Colorado doesn't get away with this next attempt to skirt the First Amendment. Your gift helps protect free speech in cases like this all over the country.
And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF is doubled by a special matching grant while funds last. Text Breakpoint to 838-48 or go to joinadf.com/slash breakpoint to have your gift doubled.
