Anti-Gay Supreme Court Argument Claims Marriage Is Only About Children

I’m actually surprised they took this path.

He was followed by the lawyer defending the same-sex marriage bans, John J. Bursch, who said they were for the benefit of children and not couples seeking companionship and mutual support.

“The state doesn’t have an interest in love and emotion at all,” Mr. Bursch said. “It’s about binding children to their biological moms and dads.”

Several justices were intensely skeptical of that rationale, noting that many gay couples have children. These justices also seemed unpersuaded by Mr. Bursch’s contention that altering the definition of marriage would harm the institution.

“All of the incentives, all of the benefits that marriage affords, would still be available,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told him. “So you’re not taking away anything from heterosexual couples. They would have the very same incentive to marry, all the benefits that come with marriage that they do now.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a similar point. “How does withholding marriage from one group — same-sex couples — increase the value to the other group?” she asked.

If the purpose of marriage is procreation, Justice Ginsburg asked, why are two 70-year-olds allowed to marry? Mr. Bursch said the male member of the couple was “still capable of having children, and you’d like to keep that within the marriage.”

Mr. Bursch said the institution of marriage was under siege, and that births out of wedlock had grown rapidly since 1970. Justice Sotomayor said the change was not because of “the recent gay marriages,” a point Mr. Bursch acknowledged.

Justice Kennedy jumped on the concession. “You’re the one that brought the statistic up,” he told Mr. Bursch. “And under your view, it would be very difficult for same-sex couples to adopt some of these children. I think the argument cuts quite against you.”

Justice Elena Kagan said allowing same-sex marriage would benefit children. “More adopted children and more marital households, whether same-sex or other-sex, seems to be a good thing,” she said. Mr. Bursch said the bans he was defending did not discriminate based on sexual orientation, which left Justice Kagan puzzled. “If you prevent people from wearing yarmulkes,” she said, “you know, that’s discrimination against Jews.”

This has to be the weakest argument they could choose. It’s so limiting. It also leads to this argument: If marriage is about “binding children to their biological moms and dads” then should people who do not want children, or cannot have children even be allowed to marry?  If this argument is accepted then wouldn’t that redefine marriage, far more than gay marriage?  It also merges quite nicely with the Republican’s forced birth-anti birth control platform.

Not kidding. Will applying for a marriage license under this definition require signing a document stating you will do everything in your power to have children?  Hey, if that’s the new definition of marriage!

This is a horribly weak argument, but I guess their true argument of “my god says so” wouldn’t fly so they were left with an argument that actually could deny marriage to a lot more people – People who don’t want children, sterile men and women, menopausal women.

This argument against gay marriage is not only baffling, it also redefines marriage far more than conservatives claim gay marriage does.