A serious push has begun in the United States to restore the true definition of marriage in law, recognising what Family First has always said: children are harmed when marriage is redefined.

At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C. this week, a coalition led by Them Before Us founder Katy Faust announced a campaign to overturn the Supreme Court’s ill-conceived 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which imposed same-sex marriage on the nation.

Faust’s speech was a devastating exposé of the damage gay marriage has inflicted on children. It is a warning Australia must heed if we care about the rights of the youngest and most vulnerable.

“Gay marriage did that”

Faust laid out a litany of tragedies directly linked to the redefinition of marriage:

• “In July, 21 children were rescued in Arcadia, California – 15 of them under the age of three… manufactured through surrogacy… being raised in a hotel-like mansion complete with a reception desk greeting a steady stream of unidentified visitors. Gay marriage did that.”
• “Just last month, six-year-old twin boys were removed from the home of a 74-year-old single man who had acquired them through IVF and surrogacy… one of the boys – non-verbal and autistic – was sometimes confined in a cage-like upstairs loft. Gay marriage did that.”
• “In 2015, Marisa and Terrah Pavan had a daughter via anonymous sperm donor and sued the state of Arkansas for the right to have both women listed on the child’s birth certificate… legally erasing the child’s father. Gay marriage did that.”
• “This summer, a video of two men kissing their surrogate-born son each month of his first year went viral. Then came the reveal: one of the men… is a convicted sex offender. Gay marriage did that.”

Faust summed up the new legal reality:
“If an adult can assemble sperm, egg, and womb – and ‘intend’ to parent the child – they get the baby. Biologically related or not. Pedophile or not. Retiree or not. Foreign national or not. Intent-based parentage is child trafficking disguised as constitutional rights. Gay marriage did that.”

She continued:
“The natural fertility of heterosexual couples was discriminatory… Now, in some jurisdictions, you can be declared ‘infertile’ as a single man, a single woman, or a same-sex couple. Your insurance premiums and tax dollars now subsidize commercial mother- and father-loss. Gay marriage did that.”

Children deserve a mother and father

As Faust put it:
“A just society does not force the weak to sacrifice for the strong, yet that is precisely what Obergefell has done.”

“When was the last time you heard a national politician say, ‘Children deserve a mother and a father?’ It’s been about ten years, hasn’t it. Gay marriage did that.”

She reminded her audience that this is not about animus toward adults, but protection of children:
“This isn’t just a problem for the children being contracted into existence… It’s your problem. It’s your children’s problem.”

Because biology has been downgraded in law, Faust warned, “the preeminence of the natural parent-child relationship has been eroded, or outright inverted… Today, parental rights must be surrendered before conception if the child’s gametes are to be sold on the open market.”

Her conclusion was clear:
“This is not about targeting lesbians or gays. This is about defending children from a legal regime that has victimized and commodified them.”

“We must re-establish the preeminence of parent/child relationship through policy and strategic court cases. We need to force the Supreme Court to choose: natural parenthood or state-assigned parenthood. They cannot have both.”

“We must change public opinion, but that won’t happen until we change [our perception of who is] the victim. If we are to retake legal marriage, we need to highlight the real victims: the children.”

Family First’s position

Family First believes the United States is right to revisit this failed social experiment, and Australia must too. Marriage was not redefined to expand rights—it was redefined to satisfy adult desires at the expense of children’s needs.

No child should be forced by law to have their mother or father erased from their birth certificate. No child should be manufactured, bought, and sold to satisfy adult want. Every child deserves their mum and dad.

For their sake, Family First calls for the repeal of same-sex marriage laws in Australia and the restoration of marriage as the union of one man and one woman—for life, and for the benefit of children.

Faust is no stranger to Australia. In 2017 she travelled here to help the Coalition for Marriage make the case for children during the same-sex marriage plebiscite. Tragically, Australians voted—without the facts and against the best interests of children—to redefine marriage.