I am a lawyer and I work in public policy, but today I speak to you as a mom. Let me ask you: Can you imagine what your life would have been like without your mom? It’s almost impossible to imagine. What if someone could turn back the clock, and without asking your permission, take away your mother? How unjust that would be? How cruel. What a violation of your rights.
And yet, if marriage is redefined by the Supreme Court, it will mean that mothers don’t really matter to children, and neither do fathers. The same-sex marriage debate is always framed in terms of the ‘rights’ of the adults, and never of the children. The children have no voice in this debate. They don’t even seem to count.
Wednesday, the Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court that same-sex couples “divide child care … evenly” and are “satisfied” with their child care arrangements.
Well, what about the children? Are they satisfied?
As a mom, I find the administration’s indifference to the importance of mothers offensive. I have two daughters, and on behalf of daughters everywhere, I call it an injustice.
All people are capable of loving children, but all the love in the world can’t turn a mother into a father or a father into a mother.
If the Supreme Court redefines marriage, it will commit a permanent and virtually irreversible injustice against the children, who have no voice in the matter, but who matter the most.
Cathy Ruse is the senior fellow for Legal Studies at the Family Research Council.
