Gay marriage does not protect the right of children
Image via WikipediaMarriage protects the rights of children
There are many variations of households that nurture children, including those that can only have occurred through the use of technology.
In all circumstances in which children are nurtured, the State has a parents
patriae interest in the welfare of children.
It is for that reason that the State is involved with legislating to ensure
the identity and status of children.
The law determines who are a child's parents in circumstances in which
reproductive technology has created ambiguity by separating reproduction from the biological relationship between a man and a woman.
In the same way the State has an interest in marriage because the relationship between a man and a woman is capable of generating children. The State supports marriage because children may result from it. The State lacks a reason to legislate to promote relationships that do not produce children.
The State has an interest in the exclusiveness and permanency of marriage because they are needed to protect the identity and status of any children who
result from marriage, in the first instance, and to preserve their rights to know, to have access to and to be cared for by both a mother and father.
Altering the definition of marriage to include relationships that are not the kind of relationship to generate children removes the primary basis and justification for the State’s interest in marriage.
If children happen to be in a same-sex household they will always have come from outside that relationship, either through an earlier relationship or through the use of some other biological parent and technology.
In the case of a same sex male household that would be through someone else being the child's birth mother. The law already operates to secure the relationship of that child to social parents.
There is no direct relationship between a same sex relationship and children and those relationships are of no more interest to the law than any
other kind of relationship.
If the law were to be changed so that marriage included same sex relationships, then marriage would no longer be about children. It would be about adults only.
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