When children are separated from their biological parents, they are gravely wounded. Sure, they can develop coping mechanisms. But they suffer a primal wound that cannot and should not be ignored. I think the more we disregard the bond of child to mother and father, the more we devolve as a society into grave injustice towards children. And it doesn’t matter if a woman agrees to donate her egg or if a man happily donates his sperm or if a surrogate contracts to give up a child in exchange for money or for any other reason. The child will experience any such act as a loss. We need to stop looking at children as commodities to satisfy adult desires. If we keep hurtling down this path of human separation — separation that has roots in no fault divorce, the sexual revolution and abortion on demand — we will all end up enslaved by a bureaucratic state.
So today I recommend you read some recent documents that have historic significance. They are amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court written by adult children from same sex households, in opposition to same sex marriage. They are writers and scholars who understand – from their unique perspective of being severed from a birth parent and deliberately deprived of an opposite sex parent– that children have an inherent right to know their origins wherever possible. When deprived of the love and knowledge of a birth parent, it’s a loss and a scar that doesn’t go away.
Here’s the reality: same sex marriage absolutely requires that the state accept and encourage the separation of children from their biological parents. This is the trajectory it puts us on, even if we don’t quite feel its effects on society just yet.
Three amicus briefs were filed by six defenders of marriage. Dawn Stefanowicz and Denise Shick filed jointly here:
Heather Barwick and Katy Faust filed jointly here:
Robert Oscar Lopez and BN Klein filed jointly here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/ObergefellHodges/AmicusBriefs/14-556_Robert_Oscar_Lopez_and_BN_Klein.pdf
This is the primary question before the Court:
Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?
Professor Lopez argues persuasively that same sex marriage is on a collision course with the natural rights of children. The Fourteenth Amendment should more appropriately be applied to children in this case. Otherwise, it severs them from the right to know their origins, and does so without due process. Here’s an excerpt from Lopez’s brief:
The Court should refer to the Fourteenth Amendment clause about equal protection of the laws, in order to uphold laws that define marriage as only male-female. In upholding such laws the Court would ensure that citizens with gay parents have equal protection both as minors and as adults, and that such citizens will not be estranged from their father or mother without due process.
In truth it is gay marriage that will create a suspect class of children targeted for the denial of essential civil and human rights. Gay marriage will allow adults to acquire custody of other people’s children and deny those children connections to their original mother and father. Other problems flow from this initial denial of the basic human right to be connected to one’s origins. What the Court must weigh now is the competing application of the Fourteenth Amendment to two distinct classes: gay and lesbian couples who want children, and on the other hand, COGs.
It really looks like we are all being set up to cede our rights to know our parents and our origins.
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