The French government in 2006 made a strong, reasoned case for not allowing same-sex couples to marry. They explain their decision was conditioned on the best interests of children. They recently upheld that decision. France! Those backwoods traditionalists.
Here, one of the plaintiffs petitioning for such marriage, explained,
“We want to get married because this is the best solution to legitimize our family. If we could get married, then our children would have two parents. It would no longer be a matter of who is the biological mother, we would both be their parents. It would make everything much more simple.”
Marriage can declare that a child has two moms simply by the moms being able to marry? More simple?
She doesn’t seem to understand how parentage works. If a man marries a woman who has a child, he does not become the father. And it is a very curious twist in her mind how marriage can declare that two ladies can be a child’s two parents. She might surmise it makes them feel like real parents. Is parentage merely a matter of the heart?
Note also that current French law offers same-sex couples real, substantive legal protections and benefits of marriage. But that is not what this couple is after. They want their new-fangled family legitimized, as she explains. Is it really family law’s purpose to make sure we feel good about our families? That is what these two ladies are looking for.
And why did France saying no now and and in 2006? Because, as they explained in their earlier decision, to pretend that any new law can give a child two same-sex parents is artificial. Indeed.