I am heterosexual, married to the same woman for nearly 45 years. I have two children, both adopted many years ago. I felt that the Republican pricks defending marriage discrimination in Tuesday's Supreme Court argument slandered my family as well as those of all my LGBT brothers and sisters, who have or wish to have children, and every step-parent, step-child, etc., in this bit of malignant mouth slime:
when you change the definition of marriage to delink the idea that we're binding children with their biological mom and dad, that has consequences.
Translation: The State may choose to ennoble or prefer, in the administration of civil institutions, parents and children having "biological" kinship, over those without such kinship.
Step out into the tall grass for my somewhat more enraged than usual reaction to seeing that this argument was made.
As a legal matter, this argument had no business being made in the first place. In an appellate oral argument, in the Supreme Court or any other appellate Court, the advocates are ethically bound to only argue on the basis of facts in the record. But, of course, no evidence exists, in the record of the cases argued on Tuesday or elsewhere in the universe, that "biological" kinship between parent and child has any advantage inherent over any other sort of kinship.
My beautiful, adult, accomplished, independent and fiercely humanitarian daughters help make our family a wonderful mash-up of people with ancestors from England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, Africa, Chickasaw Nation, Osage Nation and Creek Nation, that we know of, through direct line of family knowledge. None of us share the slightest bit of "biological" kinship (beyond what one might share with a total stranger). All of us cherish and revel in our kinship nevertheless.
But, according to this horrible argument in the Supreme Court, the State is supposedly empowered to declare, notwithstanding my family's rights, to Equal Protection under the law, that the kind of kinship my family enjoys is somehow inferior to "biological" kinship, in terms of my family's, or any other family's, rights to the benefits of civil institutions like marriage.
So, everyone has a stake in a just outcome for the marriage equality cases. The monsters who defend marriage discrimination, just like their historical counterparts, from many eras gone by, who have always defended discrimination, never care about collateral damage. Moreover, arguing for the legal ennoblement of "biological" kinship, in the allocation of access to the benefits of civil institutions, smacks of racism. If the Supreme Court were to explicitly accept such an argument, where in the hell does that line get drawn?
Justice is good for everyone. Injustice is bad for everyone. I wish I was a lot more confident that the Supreme Court won't fuck this up.