Why Banning Gay Marriage Is Really Unconstitutional

Children are more involved in gay marriage than most people know, mainly because many gay couples adopt. So why shouldn’t they be considered in the decision making of marriage equality? Susannah W. Pallvogt and Catherine E. Smith, professors at Washburn University School of Law and University of Denver Strum College of Law, wrote “The Smartest Constitutional Argument for Marriage Equality That No One Is Making,” an article in which they argue that banning gay marriage is against the constitutional rights of children. The article contains logical appeals in their reasons and examples to support their argument that the state cannot punish children for the acts of adults. First they point out a few cases in which states tried to do just that. Either by forbidding children who were born out of wedlock from receiving benefits after the deaths of their mothers, denying the distribution of worker’s compensation to “illegitimate” children after the death of a parent, or denying undocumented immigrant children a public education. However, the Supreme Court revoked them because “no child is responsible for his birth and penalizing the illegitimate child is an ineffectual - as well as unjust - way of deterring the parent.” They used the cases to connect them to how children are affected by the banning of gay marriage. Which leads to another one of their points, that the children of same-sex partners are denied benefits, “both economically and psychologically,” because of the marital status of their parents. Now Susannah and Catherine use an ethical appeal to draw morals around the belief that banning gay marriage does not justifies trying to control adults and punishing children in the process. Lastly, they point out that courts have not used this argument to resolve the issue because they are not well informed. They say it’s because gay couples raising children is a new thing but I think the courts are just trying to ignore that it potentially violates the rights of children.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/09/29/children_of_gay_couples_make_marriage_equality_a_constitutional_necessity.html

Targeting Children

Should children only be allowed parents of opposite sex? Mary Summerhays, the founder of Celebration of Marriage surely thinks so and stirred quite a bit of debate after displaying pictures of gay couples with their children during a rally calling to limit marriage to its "traditional" way - one man one woman. By displaying these pictures, Summerhays has publicly made an image of the faces of these children who have been so called "damaged" by their parents. However, these are kids who have been adopted, and to say that these couples have deprived them of a biological mother and father is truly wrong. They were deprived of that choice even before these couples entered their lives. Their gay parents are the closest they will get to real parents, and I doubt these children even know the difference. Now that these pictures are out there accompanied by the negative message that gay couples should not be parents is actually what is going to scar and damage the children. Summerhays most likely exposed the pictures to use in her favor, to support her claim that gay parents cannot provide a normal life for their children. But what she really did was ruin the lives of the children in the pictures. They will now grow up being told that their parents are the enemy. By looking at this picture, who can say or imply that this child lives in an unstable environment. To me he looks pretty happy next to his two dads.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/58442642-90/marriage-relationships-photos-sex.html.csp