Dr.
Jennifer Roback Morse’s
testimony to the Rhode Island
legislature regarding Same Sex
Marriage
Delivered February 9, 2011
I am here today to address those of you who
have already made up your minds to
redefine marriage. History will not be kind
to you. Previous generations of social
experimenters have caused unimaginable
misery for millions of people. Particular
people advocated the policies that led to
today’s 50% divorce rate and 40% out of
wedlock childbearing rate. None of these
people has ever been held accountable.
I am here today to hold you to account, for
the predictable harms you will cause by
redefining marriage.
Let me remind you of the essential public
purpose of marriage. Marriage attaches
mothers and fathers to their children, and to
one another. Once you replace that essential
public purpose with inessential, even
frivolous private purposes, marriage will not
be able to do its job. But children will still
need secure attachments to their mothers and
fathers, a need which will go unfulfilled.
You are redefining parenthood, as a side
effect of redefining marriage, without even
considering what you are about to do. Until
now, marriage makes legal parenthood track
biological parenthood. The legal
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
presumption of paternity means that children
born to a married woman are presumed to be
the children of her husband. With this legal
rule, and the social practice of sexual
exclusivity, marriage attaches children to
their biological parents.
Same sex couples of course, do not
procreate together. “Marriage equality”
requires a slippery move from “presumption
of paternity” to the gender neutral
“presumption of parentage.” This sleight of
hand transforms parenthood. The same sex
partner of a biological parent is never the
other biological parent. Rather than
attaching children to their biological parents,
same sex marriage is the vehicle that
separates children from a parent.
No longer will the law hold that children
need a mother and a father. Under the
inspiration and guidance of people like you
in other states, courts are saying silly things
like, “the traditional notion that children
need a mother and a father to be raised into
healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more
on stereotype than anything else.”1
This statement made by the Iowa Supreme
Court in Varnum v Brien, is false as a
general statement. Mountains of data show
that children do need their mothers and their
fathers,2 and that children care deeply about
biological connections.3 The gay
community is not responsible for today’s
generation of fatherless children. But they
will be responsible for the next such
generation.
And don’t tell me that we already have lots
of children unattached to their parents. We
should be taking steps to place responsible
limits on things like divorce, rather than
careening headlong into further and more
institutionalized injustices to children.
Are you really prepared to accept
responsibility for the consequences of
detaching legal parenthood from the natural
moorings of biology? Do you really want a
world in which children may have three or
four legal parents?4 Are you ready for
contract parenting, in which adults parcel
out parental responsibilities amongst
themselves? That is the world you are
bringing into being. 5
The next generation of children of divorce
may be shuttling between 3 or 4 households,
with their backpacks and their sleeping bags.
Whether you’re ready or not, I hold you
accountable.
And don’t try to tell me “nothing so terrible
has happened in Massachusetts.” Redefining
marriage redefines the way in which
generations relate to one another. It is
ludicrous to believe that we would feel the
full impact of such a change in a few years.
It will take at least a generation, a full thirty
years or more, before the full effects of
redefining marriage work themselves out
throughout the social system.6
The only argument you have is so-called
“equality.” You have taken a venerable
American concept and twisted it out of
recognition. Equality used to mean limiting
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
the power of the state to make irrelevant
distinctions among citizens. In your hands,
equality has become a battering ram for
smashing every aspect of social life that has
any hint of sexual differentiation. No more
mothers and fathers, only Parent 1 and
Parent 2.
Far from limiting the power of the state,
your version of equality has become a tool
for the hostile takeover of civil society by
the state. Churches are already under attack
for daring to dissent from the new state-
imposed Orthodoxy that marriage is
whatever the government says it is.7
Parents are losing the right to direct the
education of their own children.8 Foster
parents in the UK must submit to the state’s
views about marriage.9 Reputable adoption
agencies have been put out of business.
And the pettiness of some of the complaints
brought by same sex couples is simply
staggering. Christian bed and breakfast
owners have been sued for not allowing
unmarried couples to stay in double rooms.
They would have gladly rented them
separate rooms, but that was not good
enough for the thought police.10 Same sex
couples have brought legal complaints
against wedding photographers, as if there
were a constitutional right to have your
picture taken by the person of your
choice.11 All in the name of “civil rights.”
Let me remind you that a vast majority of
African Americans completely reject same
sex marriage. They are deeply offended by
the high-jacking of the moral authority of
their civil rights movement.
When slavery was abolished, all slaves
became free men and women. When women
obtained the right to vote, the discrimination
ended with the very next election. But for
children of same sex marriage, the situation
will be different. When we come to our
senses 30 years from now and realize that
we have perpetrated a grotesque injustice,
not a single child born fatherless or
motherless within a same sex marriage will
get his missing parent back. Only prevention
will protect children’s rights.
The thin disguise of marriage equality will
not mislead anyone, nor will it atone for the
wrong this day done.12
And to those of you who plan to vote for
man/woman marriage, I say: stay strong!
History is on your side.
1 Varnum v Brien Supreme Court of Iowa,
No. 07–1499, Filed April 3, 2009, pg 54,
footnote 26
2 Among the many citations that could be
given, “Why Marriage Matters: 26
Conclusions from the Social Sciences,”
(NY: Institute for American Values, 2005),
summarizes some of the most important
research.
3 See Elizabeth Marquardt, Norvell Glenn
and Karen Clark, “My Daddy’s Name is
Donor: A Pathbreaking Study of Young
Adults Conceived through Sperm
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
Donation,” (NY: Institute for American
Values, 2010).
4 “Pennsylvania Court finds three Adults
Can Have Parental Rights,”
http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leona
rdlink/2007/05/pennsylvania_co.html
(quoting Superior Court case, Jacob v
Shultz-Jacob, 2007 Westlaw 1240885 , 2007
PA Super 118), “Canadian court rules boy
has a dad and two moms,”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hommarr3
par.htm
5 “Why just Two? Disaggregating
Traditional Parental Rights and
Responsibilities to Recognize Multiple
Parents,” Melanie Jacobs, Michigan State
University College of Law, Legal Studies
Research Paper Series, No. 05-04; “Johnny
has two mommies—and four dads,” Boston
Globe, October 24, 2010,
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/ar
ticles/2010/10/24/johnny_has_two_mommie
s__and_four_dads/
6 Quoting divorce statistics in
Massachusetts is frankly ridiculous, since
the divorce rate rose by 4.5% in MA
between 2004 and 2007, while the divorce
rate across the whole of the US fell by 2.7%.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/Divorce
%20Rates%2090%2095%20and%2099-
07.pdf (Divorce Rate by State, 1990- 2007,
Division of Vital Statistics, National Center
for Health Statistics, CDC. Page last
updated, November 19, 2010), and
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_div
orce_tables.htm National Marriage and
Divorce Trends, National Vital Statistics
System. Provisional number of divorces and
annulments and rates, United States, 2000-
2007, page last updated, November 19,
2010.
7 For a general discussion of the likely
impact of same sex marriage on a variety of
church-related activities, see Douglas
Laycock, Anthony R. Picarello, Jr. and
Robin Fretwell Wilson, Same-Sex Marriage
and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts,
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield
Publishers, 2008).
8 See in Massachusetts for instance, Parker
v. Hurley, 514 F.3d 87, 92-93 (1st Cir.
2008), cert. denied, 2008 WL 1926813 (Oct.
6, 2008), and in California, SB 777 requires
“non-discrimination” in instruction, for
private as well as public schools. Senate
Floor Analysis of S.B. 777, Senate Rules
Committee, Office of Senate Floor Analysis
2 (Sept. 19, 2007) (internal quotations
omitted), available at
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-
08/bill/sen/sb_0751-
0800/sb_777_cfa_20070919_103650_sen_fl
oor.html. See S.B. 777, 2007-2008 Reg.
Sess. (Cal. 2007), available at
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-
08/bill/sen/sb_0751-
0800/sb_777_bill_20071012_chaptered.pdf;
9 In the UK, see the recent cases of Owen
and Eunice Johns,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-
1325311/Gay-rights-laws-danger-freedoms-
Bishops-speak-homosexuality.html and John
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com • 760/295-9278
©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the
Ruth Institute.
and Charlotte Yallop,
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/A
ugust/Christians-Denied-Foster-Kids-Over-
Moral-Stance/
10 A UK couple who runs a bed and
breakfast out of their own home is being
sued by a same sex couple because they
were denied a double room.
http://wn.com/Christian_B&B_owners_sued
_by_homosexual_couple
11 The New Mexico Human Rights
Commission fined a Christian wedding
photographer because she declined to take
photos of a lesbian commitment ceremony.
http://media.npr.org/documents/2008/jun/ph
otography.pdf
12 Slight paraphrase of Justice Harlan’s
dissent in Plessey v. Ferguson, 163 U.S.
537,562
Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an
economist and the Founder and President of
the Ruth Institute, a nonprofit educational
organization devoted to bringing hope and
encouragement for lifelong married love.
She is also the author of Love and
Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a
Village and Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long
Love in a Hook-Up World.