Refining Marriage Violates Children’s Civil Rights

by / on April 20, 2015 at 2:17 pm /
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parentsSAN DIEGO, California — April 20, 2015 — The Ruth Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to healing the American family from the structural injustices of the sexual revolution, in collaboration with Sharee Langenstein, Attorney at Law in the state of Illinois, submitted an Amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court on the upcoming marriage cases.

“Separating children from their parents without a compelling or unavoidable reason creates a structural injustice to the children,” said Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President of the Ruth Institute. “The court must ultimately answer the question: why is ‘marriage equality’ for adults more socially compelling than the rights of children?”

Dr. Morse identifies the sexual revolution as the driving force behind other structural injustices to children which include divorce, single-parenting by choice, cohabitation without a commitment and 3rd party reproduction. Genderless marriage is just the latest structural injustice to children.

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“The civil rights of children are just as important as the rights of adults,” said Dr. Morse. “In addition to having a right to a relationship with both natural parents, children have the right to their identity, including their genetic and cultural heritage. It is unjust to deprive a child of their origins or their past. It’s a human rights atrocity. Adults get to do what they want and kids have to suck it up.”

According to Dr. Morse, these court cases are adding an entire new category of victims – marginalized children. “The law is now becoming the very vehicle that separates a child from his or her parents.” Attorney Sharee Langenstein agrees. “Allowing same-sex couples to marry not only changes the definition of marriage, it also changes the definition of parentage. The law should recognize the natural connection between mothers, fathers and their children.”

Langenstein continued, “Studies show that children raised in households with same-sex parents suffer because of it. Many adults raised in such homes have chosen to speak out on the issue, but rather than listening compassionately to their stories, the media and gay rights advocates have endeavored to vilify and marginalize these courageous individuals.”

Morse and Langenstein assert that Courts supporting genderless marriage have failed to explain why a state has any interest at all in the private feelings and commitments of adults without concern for the welfare of the children such relationships produce.

Langenstein concluded, “The Supreme Court can and should return these important issues to the states and civil society for the comprehensive discussion they deserve.”

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  • franklinb23

    “Dr. Morse identifies the sexual revolution as the driving force behind other structural injustices to children which include divorce, single-parenting by choice … ”

    Is she talking about conceiving a child with the intent of raising them alone or adopting a child when one is single?

    You have to look at reality as it is, not as we would like it to be. Adoption by single parents can be a great blessing to a child IF the person has the financial and psychological means to do so. They would be better off than in a two-parent household that was abusive (or being moved from foster home to foster home or remaining in a group setting).

    • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

      She is talking about the assault on sexual responsibility and normality, which has been leaving children in the lurch for nearly 50 years now, in all its forms.

      Reality as it is, was, and always will be proves overwhelmingly that a home in which the biological mother and father are present in a committed relationship to raise the children is the best and really only adequate environment for child development.

      There are tons of couples who pay huge amounts of money and wait long periods of time to adopt children. The false claim that somehow children MUST go to a single parent or to two homosexuals is a lie designed to make people feel better about their narcissistic choices at the expense of children.

    • Thisoldspouse

      When a single parent adopts a child, the child is not really being raised by the parent, if that adult is your typical working individual. The child is essentially being raised by whoever is providing the child-care. I know this is a swipe at two-career homes and career women, but the reality cannot be avoided - time and effort devoted to a career is time NOT SPENT with the child under his care.

      I’m mindful of the unavoidable, tragic instances of single parenthood, and those unavoidable cases are the exception, although they do not have to be a static condition. And most of the time these days, these situations are NOT the exception, but the rule.

  • Pollos Hermanos

    Morse is fighting the wrong battle here. What she wants to do is ban single people and gays from having children at all.

    Her amicus brief is irrelevant to the question before the court. Legal adoption by gay couples already exists and will continue to exist no matter which way SCOTUS rules on marriage in June.

    • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

      It is completely relevant to the question before the court. Because marriage always has been and always will be about creating and raising children. Homosexual couples cannot do the first, and must deprive a child of either a mother or father to even attempt to do the second.

      Once society returns to sanity, we will go back to banning homosexuals from adopting props to make themselves feel better and appear more normal. We can only hope that return will be as soon as possible, so that as few children as possible have to be deprived of a mother or a father, and placed in elevated danger.

      http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/pedophilia-in-the-homosexual-world/

      http://www.dakotavoice.com/2010/04/report-homosexuality-connected-to-sex-abuse-epidemic/

      • Pollos Hermanos

        I seriously doubt the court will take that argument into account. That particular line of reasoning has been used and rejected by the majority in Windsor. Repeating it in this case isn’t going to change minds.

        Besides, gay couples may or may not have children. The namesake of this case, Jim Obergefell, is a widower and they didn’t have any children as far as I know. Their aspect of this case is about a death certificate.

        • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

          With a court system that shows little evidence of caring what the U.S. Constitution says, or about facts in truth in general, who knows what they will or will not take into account.

          Nevertheless, the truth remains the truth, no matter who treats it with contempt.

          And no, though you are apparently as adrift from reality as a number of other people are, it is scientifically, biologically impossible for a homosexual couple to produce children. I know that it the wacko land of Leftist fantasy, science, facts and truth are “whatever you want them to be,” but in Realville, two penises or two vaginas cannot make a child.

          • Pollos Hermanos

            I think the problem here is that you assume other relationships that don’t look like yours require your blessing or approval.

            • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

              No, that isn’t even remotely the problem here.

              The problem here is that homosexual activists are engaged in an immoral, dangerous and illegitimate behavior; they know it; they think being able to call their unions “marriage” (despite the fact that they lack a necessary element to form a marriage, and cannot fulfill the purpose of a marriage) will provide some illusion of legitimacy to an illegitimate behavior; and they not about to allow the welfare of children or society in general to get in their way of that vain quest.

              That is the problem here.

              • Pollos Hermanos

                Your opinion, nothing more.

              • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

                It’s a fact, based on the facts I’ve already pointed out in considerable detail. I used to be a police investigator, and I’ve had considerable training in psychological motivations, and why people do the things they do. Based on the nature of marriage and family, as well as the nature of the subject behavior and having known a number of homosexuals over the years, the fact-based dots glow in unmistakable bright neon.

    • Thisoldspouse

      One of the most common arguments advanced by homosexual activists seeking, in courts, to redefine marriage is that “their” children must have marriage in their household or something just terrible will happen to them. They avoid the fact that they thought the household construct was just fine to incorporate children to begin with, without a “marriage” designation, but now it is suddenly woefully inadequate.

      In other words, homosexuals are just using the children they acquired as cannon fodder. It doesn’t get much more hateful and despicable than that.

      • Pollos Hermanos

        Oh please go right ahead and insult families with adopted children in front of Justice Roberts.

        I beg of you.

        • DCM7

          You think he’s generally insulting all families with adopted children?
          Methinks I see a straw-man.

          • Pollos Hermanos

            Methinks y’all are clinging to losing arguments.

            • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

              Methinks we have yet another example of Leftist denial of reality. (But then, if Leftists came to terms with reality, they wouldn’t be Leftists anymore).

              • Pollos Hermanos

                Here’s the reality. Come June I will have won. Your point of view notwithstanding. You can stomp your feet all you like and scream “it’s not real” but it really wont matter at all.

              • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

                If you “win” in June, the institution of marriage, the family, America’s children, religious freedom, morality, public virtue, reality, truth, representative government, the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, 239 years of the American experiment with self government, and all of America will have lost. That’s what you will have vanquished.

                If that were to happen, even if you are myopic and corrupt enough to celebrate your Pyrrhic victory over these things, you will someday weep for what you have championed. And the faces of those you have assaulted will torment you long after the last echo of your cackles have faded.

                Things were pretty dark in Philadelphia the morning of September 27, 1777, and the morning of December 8, 1941.

                But evil only has a short season in the sun. Good always comes back around eventually to push it back into the shadows, and will eventually win completely.

              • Pollos Hermanos

                Hyperbole plain and simple.

              • DCM7

                Hyperbole, perhaps, but still based on truth.
                I note that, generally, you just casually dismiss whatever you don’t agree with, and don’t even attempt to respond to the really critical points made. Well, that’s typical, I guess.

              • Pollos Hermanos

                Ok.

                “If you “win” in June,the institution of marriage , the family, America’s children, religious freedom, morality, public virtue, reality, truth, representative government, the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, 239 years of the American experiment with self government, and all of America will have lost. That’s what you will have vanquished.”

                I will leave you with some interesting quotes if you’d like:

                1. ANTI-INTERRACIAL State v. Jackson. Missouri (1883): “They cannot possibly have any progeny, and such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid the intermarriage of blacks and whites.”

                2. ANTI-INTERRACIAL Scott v. Georgia (1869): “The amalgamation of the races is not only unnatural, but is always productive of deplorable results. Our daily observation shows us, that the offspring of these unnatural connections are generally sickly and effeminate […]They are productive of evil, and evil only, without any corresponding good.”

                3. ANTI-INTERRACIAL Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924: The law’s stated purpose was to prevent “abominable mixture and spurious issue.” It “forbade miscegenation on the grounds that racial mixing was scientifically unsound and would ‘pollute’ America with mixed-blood offspring.”

                4. ANTI-GAY Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), 2011: “It not only is a complete undermining of the principles of family and marriage and the hope of future generations, but it completely begins to see our society break down to the extent that that foundational unit of the family that is the hope of survival of this country is diminished to the extent that it literally is a threat to the nation’s survival in the long run.”

                5. ANTI-INTERRACIAL Senator James R. Doolittle (D-WI), 1863: “By the laws of Massachusetts intermarriages between these races are forbidden as criminal. Why forbidden? Simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong.”

                6. ANTI-INTERRACIAL Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Taney: “Intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral.”

                7. ANTI-INTERRACIAL Lonas v. State (1871): Attorneys argued that intermarriage was “distasteful to our people, and unfit to produce the human race in any of the types in which it was created.” Tennessee’s court agreed, saying that “any effort to intermerge the individuality of the races as a calamity full of the saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us.”

                8. ANTI-INTERRACIAL Bob Jones University, (1998!!!): “Although there is no verse in the Bible that dogmatically says that races should not intermarry, the whole plan of God as He has dealt with the races down through the ages indicates that interracial marriage is not best for man.”

                9. ANTI-GAY Family Research Council publication, 2002: “A little-reported fact is that homosexual and lesbian relationships are far more violent than are traditional married households.”

                10. ANTI-INTERRACIAL From a submitted briefing to the Court on Loving v. Virginia: “I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose [this type of relationship] as ‘prejudiced’ is in itself a prejudice,” a psychologist said. “Nothing of any significance is gained by such a marriage.”

                Please don’t think anything you guys say is new.

              • DCM7

                If you don’t understand why anything regarding interracial marriage is 100% irrelevant to anything regarding “gay marriage,” then you’re missing some pretty big things (that you apparently want to miss).
                Some hints for you:
                (1) Forbidding interracial marriage was adding a restriction (on normal man-woman relationships) that didn’t need to be there; allowing “gay marriage” removes a restriction that does need to be there.
                (2) Forbidding interracial marriage was based on anti-Biblical ideas (regardless of what “Christians” they influenced), as is allowing “gay marriage.”
                P.S.: I suppose you think anything *you’re* saying is new? “New” isn’t the issue anyway; “correct” is.

              • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

                As usual, the Left has nothing but propaganda, lies and complete denial to defend its embrace of immorality and tyranny. Any rational person knows there is no legitimate comparison between an innate, morally-neutral physical characteristic such as skin color, and an immoral, unnatural, and unhealthy behavior like sodomy.

                I have tried to be patient with you, because for the most part, you have been a little more reasonable than most homosexual activists. But this kind of Bravo Sierra about something so incredibly important-affecting the institution of marriage, the welfare of children, religious freedom, property rights, the constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, and more-is just too much. This site exists to provide information to good people in a world filled with lies, not to provide an opportunity for Leftists to spew denial of what is right in yet another corner of society. I’ve had it with your complete crap. Take it to some Leftist propaganda site where lies are welcome.

              • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

                No, not even a shred of hyperbole. If the Supreme Court is insane enough to (first ignore the constitutional limits on its own authority, and) force counterfeit marriage on the United States, it will put all of the things I cited in the crosshairs of the Left and torpedo them.

                The ripple effects of this potential decision could very well be the end of America as it has been known for 239 years. The fact that an unprecedented number of people have finally woke up and got engaged in this is proof of the magnitude of the issue. I only hope the engagement has not come too late.

              • DCM7

                “Come June I will have won.”
                In other words, you only care about getting what you want when you want it.
                The world has never benefitted from anyone with that attitude. It has only benefitted from those willing to put greater things above what was personally convenient for them.

        • Thisoldspouse

          Please. Roberts is married, really married. He never demanded that marriage be redefined to accommodate a situation that he created before hand.

          In other words, Justice Roberts cares about the children he has adopted.

  • franklinb23

    Again, I think two issues are wrongly being conflated here: adoption/parenthood and marriage.

    That a civil marriage license is bestowed upon a couple in no way asserts that said couple would make fit parents.

    Charles Manson recently married his nutty female pen pal. I don’t think anyone would allow these two within a 10-mile radius of a kid, let alone suggest they conceive one and raise them together. Yet, the state acknowledges the benefits of (and their right to) their civil marriage regardless of whether children are present or not.

    If Morse wanted to be consistent, I think she’d have to suggest that only those who would make “suitable parents” (as defined by the minimum standards of any religious or secular adoption agency) should be granted civil marriage licenses.

    • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

      They are inseparable, because as Dr. Morse and many others have pointed out, marriage is fundamentally about children.

      As I have pointed out numerous times before, the state has absolutely zero interest in “friendship registries” or “sexual relationship registries” or anything else. In and of itself (which is what the Left would myopically have us believe), there is absolutely ZERO state interest in who’s screwing who.

      The reason there IS a state interest in sexuality is because, contrary to what the Left would myopically have us to believe, the only legitimate use and purpose for sex is reproduction (sure, it feels good, but the good feeling is a by-product that motivates us toward the purpose, which is to reproduce).

      And regardless of the near-universal availability of all manner of contraceptives, the only legitimate and scientifically purposeful type of sex (heteroex) will always frequently result in reproduction, both intentional and unintentional.

      And as long as children are being reproduced, the state DOES have an interest in sex. One reason the state has an interest in sex is because without enough people to carry on a civilization, a state/civilization will begin to wither and die. As the agent of justice in any civilization (and justice is really close to the most fundamental purpose of any government), the state also has a vital interest in making sure that the right of children (i.e. citizens who are the most vulnerable and dependent) to be raised in an environment that is healthy, balanced, and provides their basic needs.

      As we are already seeing through the dereliction to children being perpetrated by unwed births and no-fault divorce, lax policy on protecting the integrity of marriage and family results in incalculable harm to children (poverty, emotional problems, mental problems, anxiety, depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, academic problems, perpetuation of the cycle of irresponsibility and poverty, trouble with the law, etc). That harm also incurs an unjust cost to society that the taxpayers must bear, i.e. the financial cost of dealing with all the aforementioned problems.

      I agree with your incredulity over the Manson marriage. However, a responsible society would not allow an incarcerated murderer to marry. He has forfeited all but his most basic of human rights (and shouldn’t be consuming air anymore, if justice had truly been served many years ago), and certainly should not be allowed to make a mockery of marriage.

      The state cannot go to great lengths to ensure “suitable parents” without fail; attempts to do so would result in unwarranted and unjust intrusions into the lives of private individuals. But the state CAN and SHOULD take reasonable steps to ensure the suitability of home and parenting environments, and a number of these can be done without such intrusions. For one thing, we would rightfully protect a child from being in the home of a convicted pedophile. We should (and used to) rightfully protect a child from being deliberately placed in a home where either a mother or father is by design absent. And it’s pretty obvious that two people who aren’t even willing to find a partner of the opposite sex and form a legitimate marriage are too narcissistic to deserve custody of a child-especially when you consider that such an environment would, again, deliberately deprive a child of a mother or a father, not to mention send the child the dangerous and unbalanced message that either males or females are unnecessary or undesirable, or both.

    • DCM7

      To venture beyond Bob’s points: While the creation and raising of children is clearly the primary point and purpose of marriage, it’s clear that there is much value in the male/female dynamic even beyond that. (Bob has alluded to this in the past as well.) Each sex brings something to the table that a second person of the other sex simply could not, especially where children are involved but even where they’re not.

      Additionally, many people (unfortunately including many married ones) apparently fail to realize what it takes to make the joining of opposites succeed — the strength of character, the willingness and ability to grow and change, and so on. A person cannot succeed in marriage without experiencing tremendous improvement in the process.

      Same-sex arrangements cannot begin to provide this value, nor do they involve any real attempt to do so. Many people, especially those trying to defend same-sex arrangements, seem unable to even grasp the great depth of this value. Yet the only way they can deny its reality is to basically deny that there is any meaningful difference between the sexes whatsoever — a clearly false position that no intelligent person has any excuse for taking.

      • franklinb23

        ” it’s clear that there is much value in the male/female dynamic even beyond that”

        DCM, this conflicts with the often stated assertion that there is no public purpose for marriage outside of procreation.

        Personally, I agree that marriage has its benefits even when children aren’t present. To assent to that, though, acknowledges that there may be benefits to bestowing legal recognition to gay couples.

        You can’t have it both ways, though.

        • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

          The value in the male/female dynamic is most clearly and powerfully experienced on the individual/couple level. Males and females compliment and help complete one another with the unique talents and inclinations God gave each of the sexes.

          That value also spills over into benefit for society and the state in affirming the proper and really only legitimate and functional environment for the creation and rearing of children: marriage and family. That affirmation reinforces the norm and its value-even if children are not produced from the union (which they usually are) just as one $20 bill in the wallet reinforces and adds to the value of other $20 bills in the wallet, even if it is not spent. Conversely, a counterfeit or fraud devalues other genuine units of currency by undermining confidence in the currency and its uniqueness.

          Yes, you can have it both ways when the benefit is on more than one level, as it is.

    • Thisoldspouse

      Why is it that homo-activists argue for the absolute severing of the marriage relationship from procreation, but then use “their” children, the products of procreation, as one of the strongest arguments for justifying their “marriage?” They want to have their cake and eat it too.

  • Jennifer Roback Morse Phd

    For the record, the reason we filed the brief is: for the record. We wanted to state, for the sake of history, that someone was thinking of children and the fact that redefining marriage redefines parenthood. Our society seems to have no idea why children would want to have a relationship with their biological parents, and why they might want to know and be connected to their origins. And since we can’t understand it, we are on the verge of writing this very basic human need out of the law.

    • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

      Thank you for weighing in, Doctor, and for your work in defending marriage and family.

      • Jennifer Roback Morse Phd

        My pleasure, Bob.