Penna Dexter

It’s been more than ten years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling extending same sex marriage to every state. Gallup polling shows that, in the five years following the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, public support for gay marriage rose from 60 to 70 percent. Then it plateaued. Gallup found that, among Republicans, approval of same sex marriage stands at 41 percent — down from 55 percent ten years ago.

Perhaps more Americans now understand that when you redefine marriage, you also redefine parenthood. Pre-Obergefell, we were warned of this. Today, our laws and policies increasingly allow two same-sex adults to be the parents of a child.

Katy Faust is founder and president of Them Before Us, a global children’s rights non-profit. In an article for The Federalist, she states: “It’s now clear that the law cannot simultaneously uphold children’s right to their mother and father and affirm same-sex marriage.”

Family law is now characterized by statutes that regard “mothers and fathers as interchangeable ‘parents.’“ Katy Faust points to several examples, including the alteration of birth certificates “to legally exclude a child’s biological parent.” In addition, the term “infertility has been reclassified so that same-sex couples can deliberately produce motherless or fatherless children with the help of insurance subsidies.”

Since Obergefell, the traditional safeguards for the parent-child relationship that stem from biology, and even adoption, have been eroded and are at risk of erasure.

Katy Faust, the wife of a Baptist pastor, has assembled a coalition of high-profile Catholic and evangelical leaders to do something about this. The campaign is called “Greater Than” to emphasize the need to prioritize children’s needs over certain adult agendas. It seeks to “reassert sex-based realities” in family law, adoption screening, birth certificates, divorce, surrogacy, and marriage policy.

An Idaho state legislative committee has approved a request that the Supreme Court reverse Obergefell. Short of that, society must summon the moral courage to protect children from its worst consequences.