LGBT activists furious after Gorsuch opposes gay parents’ names on birth certificates

Newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a blistering dissent to the Court’s decision to allow “spouses” of the same gender to appear on children’s birth certificates.  

The court’s decision was predicated on the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex “marriage” across the country.  

Because same-sex “marriage” is now the law of the land, the court reasoned that states must “provide same-sex couples 'the constellation of benefits that the States have linked to marriage.'" In particular, since the Obergefell ruling specifically identified birth and death certificates as two of those rights, states can no longer deny same-sex couples any rights related to birth certificates that are granted to opposite-sex couples.

Obergefell v. Hodges laid the groundwork for rulings such as this, going beyond establishing a legal right to gay “marriage,” to asserting all rights normally associated with marriage.  

The constitutional basis of Justice Gorsuch’s dissent

Justice Gorsuch said, “[N]othing in Obergefell indicates that a birth registration regime based on biology, one no doubt with many analogues across the country and throughout history, offends the Constitution. To the contrary, to the extent they speak to the question at all, this Court’s precedents suggest just the opposite conclusion.”  

“Neither does anything in today’s opinion purport to identify any constitutional problem with a biology-based birth registration regime.”

Gorsuch asked, “What, then, is at work here?”  

“Given all this, it seems far from clear what here warrants the strong medicine of summary reversal. Indeed, it is not even clear what the Court expects to happen on remand that hasn’t happened already. The Court does not offer any remedial suggestion, and none leaps to mind.”

Gorsuch sets off LGBT alarm bells

At ThinkProgress in a piece subtitled Donald Trump’s judge is doling out Mike Pence’s justice, Ian Millhiser said, “The Supreme Court took two actions Monday morning that provide a fairly clear window into how Gorsuch will handle claims alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

“First, the Court announced that it will hear Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a case brought by a baker who claims that religion gives anti-LGBTQ business owners the right to ignore civil rights laws.  

“Second, the Court reversed an Arkansas Supreme Court decision permitting the state to engage in a subtle form of discrimination against same-sex couples. ... Taken together, these two cases suggest Gorsuch will join the Court’s right-most faction in matters relating to LGBTQ rights.”

And over at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern, who covers law and LGBTQ issues, said Gorsuch’s “dissent should be deeply alarming to LGBTQ advocates; it indicates an eagerness to read Obergefell with implausible narrowness, and a hostility to the extension of civil rights to same-sex couples.”

The true significance of the Court’s decision — for children

Children’s rights activist Katy Faust, writing at ThemBeforeUs, reacted to the court’s decision: “(I)n the name of ‘equality’ for adults, today’s Supreme Court ruling denies children both the right to their mother and father and the right to their biological identity. ‘Equality’ for same-sex couples comes by way of children’s inequality.”

Faust continued, “Children raised by gay couples will always be missing a biological parent as well as the dual-gender influence that children crave. Studies tells us that children with same-sex parents will suffer as a result. Many of those children will also struggle with identity issues as a result of being donor-conceived. But those challenging the ban were not concerned about actual outcomes for these kids and instead argued, ‘When it comes to same-sex spouses, the state’s refusal to list both of them on the birth certificate “causes those children to suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser …’”

Justice Gorsuch, who joined the Supreme Court in April, has clearly aligned himself with the court’s conservatives.

Gorsuch was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority.