Ten years ago, via judicial fiat, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage for the entire nation. But it did more than that. Obergefell v. Hodges not only redefined marriage. It redefined parenthood.
For centuries, Anglo-American common law had operated on the assumption that children belong, by nature, to their mother and father. The state’s role was not to create these bonds but to recognize and protect them. The last decade has changed that.
An increasing number of children are being intentionally deprived of their mother and father in the name of adult constitutional rights. Children conceived through donor contracts or surrogacy often struggle with identity and belonging, reporting higher levels of confusion about their origins. Studies confirm that children living with adults they’re not related to—the exact aim of same-sex parenting law—are exponentially more likely to be abused or neglected. And in single or same-sex households, children often experience “mother hunger” or “father hunger,” a psychological and emotional wound stemming from the absence of maternal or paternal love.
If it was only a matter of protecting these children, that would be enough to challenge the distorted family law “marriage equality” has imposed on the nation. But these harms are not limited to “other people’s children.” The redefinition of parenthood weakens the rights of every parent and the security of every child.
The presumption that natural parents—statistically the safest, most connected to, most invested in, and most protective of their children—have a pre-political claim was not simply a moral or religious conviction. It was a legal foundation embedded in doctrines stretching back to Lord Edward Coke’s articulation of “the marital presumption” in the seventeenth century; a child was presumed to belong not only to the mother who bore him, but to her husband, tightly binding mother-father-child into an untouchable legal triad. Rights and duties of parenthood flowed from biology, not from state assignment. The loss of a parent—through death, divorce, or abandonment—was treated as a deprivation to be mitigated, never normalized.
But in the ten years since Obergefell, one legal safeguard after another elevating the parent-child relationship has been inverted or erased. In order to enact the biological impossibility of two men or two women becoming “parents,” courts and legislatures downgraded the biological connection between all parents and children. Now the loss of a parent is not mourned—it’s celebrated, endorsed, and codified as progress.
The clearest example of how the natural parent-child relationship is being stripped of its privileged legal status is the loss of the centuries-old presumption of paternity. Historically, the marital presumption secured a child’s connection to his biological father in almost 100 percent of cases. After Obergefell, this doctrine was redefined as a gender-neutral “presumption of parentage.” In Pavan v. Smith (2017), the Supreme Court applied this presumption so two women could be listed on a child’s birth certificate, erasing the child’s biological father. A statute that used to unite children to both biological parents now cuts one parent from the picture completely.
Similarly, the fundamental rights of biological parents have been eclipsed by the recognition of adult claims. For centuries, fit biological parents had a constitutional right to raise their own children. Cases like Troxel v. Granville (2000) reaffirmed that biological parents’ decisions about their child’s care must be given “special weight,” even against grandparents. Today, courts routinely grant full parental rights to unrelated adults, sometimes displacing biological parents entirely. In New York’s Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C. (2016), the court recognized a lesbian partner with no biological or adoptive tie as a full legal parent, equal to the child’s biological mother. In Tennessee’s Harrison v. Harrison (2021), a known sperm donor’s bid for parental rights was rejected because the biological mother’s same-sex spouse was recognized as the second parent.
Likewise, the requirement of parental consent in adoption has been replaced with parental rights severed by contract. Historically, no adoption could proceed without the explicit, voluntary consent of the biological parents. Courts protected these rights carefully, even striking down adoptions for lack of notice to the biological father, as in Armstrong v. Manzo (1965). Today, surrogacy contracts can terminate parental rights automatically, with no post-birth consent and no adoption hearing. New York’s Child-Parent Security Act (2021) permits parentage through surrogacy agreements alone. The act waives the traditional protections of parental consent, disregarding genetic claims of both parent and child.
Further, historically no state allowed an adoption plan to be legally ratified before birth, in order to protect mothers and preserve natural bonds. A birth mother could not sign away her child before she had even met him. In some jurisdictions today, surrogacy contracts allow courts to terminate the maternal relationship in the second or third trimester via “pre-birth order.” The primordial connection between mother and baby can now be contractually disregarded.
Even the “best interests of the child” standard has been redefined. Traditionally, courts assumed that children were best served by being raised by their biological parents or relatives, unless they were proven unfit. Since Obergefell, this principle has been reinterpreted to favor adult romantic bonds over the child’s natural ties. The Washington State version of the 2017 Uniform Parentage Act (UPA) explicitly allows courts to deny genetic testing, prioritizing social parentage over biology in the name of a child’s “best interest.” A New York court followed that line of reasoning, refusing to administer a paternity test in the name of the child’s best interest. What was once a child-centric safeguard has become an adult-centric weapon.
The role of biological fathers has been similarly undermined. At one time, even unwed fathers were required to support the children they conceived, with the Supreme Court affirming in Gomez v. Perez (1973) that children have a right to paternal support. Now, sperm donor statutes routinely erase biological fathers from the law. The UPA states flatly: “A donor is not a parent of a child conceived by assisted reproduction.” California Family Code § 7613(b) likewise bars sperm donors from any parental status, stripping away both rights and responsibilities. Biological mothers and fathers are reduced to genetic material for purchase.
Inheritance law, too, has been rewritten. For centuries, inheritance assumed a privilege for children of the deceased. Natural children were presumed heirs precisely because they were of the deceased—not just legally but biologically. Today, donor-conceived children are treated as legal orphans. Under the UPA, sperm and egg donors are not parents unless a contract states otherwise, erasing a child’s legal connection to half of his genetic family tree. Colorado law mirrors this, ensuring donor-conceived children have no inheritance rights from their biological relatives.
The recognition of biological bonds and the importance of biological identity is one reason why 95 percent of U.S. adoptions today are open adoptions—encouraging some degree of relationship with, connection to, or knowledge of the child’s first family. In contrast, surrogacy and sperm/egg purchasing offer or even encourage anonymous arrangements so the intended parent feels more secure.
Finally, the doctrine of natural guardianship itself has been displaced. Stretching back to the seventeenth century, parents were recognized as the “natural guardians” of their children, exercising inherent authority by virtue of biology. Now, parenthood is increasingly treated as a legal status created by the state. In third-party conception, the UPA establishes parentage based on intent or the social role of the parent, rather than biological connection.
Parenthood is increasingly the domain of state-enforced contract, not natural fact. And what the state can grant, it can revoke. If government can assign parentage to non-genetic parents, it can more easily un-assign it from biological parents.
The last decade has proven that redefining marriage required redefining parenthood. To turn two men or two women into parents, courts and legislatures had to erase the primacy of biology. Even though many same-sex couples never procure children, the law had to be re-ordered for those who do. The result is that every family’s primal claim to their own children has been weakened. Today, your connection to your child depends less on nature and more on the state. A judge, a contract, or a statute has more power to decide whether you count as a parent. And if parenthood flows from state assignment, then no parent’s claim is secure.
The law once recognized that children are born already belonging to their mother and father. In the wake of Obergefell, that principle has been inverted. Unless marriage is restored as a male-female institution, the pre-political relationship between parents and children, the relationship on which both justice and civilization depend, will continue to erode. And with it, the security of every family.
