Robert Oscar Lopez discusses Obergefell’s impact on children

Amidst the clamour of voices calling for gender equality, there is an increasing number of adults raised by same-sex couples speaking out against same-sex marriage. One of these is Robert Oscar “Bobby” Lopez, Associate Professor of English and Classics at California State University, Northridge. Raised by a lesbian and her lifelong female partner, Lopez has a personal interest in the issue.

However, when Lopez spoke at a February 19 event sponsored by Students for Child-Oriented Policy, he drew from research rather than from his own experience to support the claim that children raised by two parents of the same gender are negatively affected by that relationship and by the absence of a parent of the opposite gender.

Chiefly concerned with guaranteeing same-sex couples a right to marry, the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, according to Lopez, failed to address the consequences that the widespread recognition of same-sex marriages would have on children’s rights.

Nevertheless, Lopez insisted that those who recognize these negative consequences need to avoid “re-litigating” Obergefell and instead must “focus on the collateral damage that Obergefell did in terms of the law and the way that the culture has changed the needs of children.”

In other words, because Lopez believes that the decision “almost entirely sidestepped the research” concerning children raised in same-sex homes, he devotes his time to investigating and promoting a particular version of the “children’s rights” movement: that which examines relationships, especially the relationship between the child, society, and the people in society who have obligations to that child.

All children raised by same-sex couples face challenges, Lopez explained. Social science research suggests that the negative consequences tend to be higher for children being raised by same-sex couples when the couple chooses to marry—a finding that Lopez described as “counterintuitive.”

Step-parents wield more power over the child after marriage, he posited, and this factor is even more unhealthy in same-sex unions than in opposite-sex marriages between step-parents because the non-biological parent in a same-sex marriage typically would not have been able to have a child by any other means.

However, Lopez continued, children placed in the care of two parents of the same gender through adoption—and especially those children obtained through gestational surrogacy—face particular challenges.

“Where are most of the gay couples going to be looking to get children? Unfortunately, it is a market,” Lopez said, referring to the international market in which gestational surrogacies often occur. “The problem,” he continued, “is: How close do we have to get to the buying and selling children” until we violate the 13th or 14th Amendments?

Obergefell, Lopez explained, was “noticeably silent as to whether the relationship between every citizen and the relationship between the two people who conceived them and gave them their genetic identity is a relationship that has any constitutional importance at all.”

While it appealed to the 14th Amendment to secure same-sex couples’ the legal ability to marry, the Supreme Court’s decision did not address the rights of children, which, Lopez believes, are violated when these children are received in exchange for a price.

“Is there something fundamentally more dehumanizing about buying someone than there is about giving a home to someone who is in need?” he asked, comparing the less-problematic process of adoption to that of gestational surrogacy.

Lopez described as problematic the use of Civil Rights history—and specifically of the 14th Amendment—to defend LGBTQ rights. The 13th Amendment, which Lopez explained as being inseparable from the 14th, is “vague.” However, the abolitionist movement’s definition of the problems of slavery could be reduced to the “selling of human beings,” generally resulting in three possible separations: that of husband from wife, of children from parents, and of man from his nation.

Gestational surrogacy effects the second separation, Lopez argued. It separates children from their biological parents and, in the case of same-sex marriages, places them in situations that are often harmful because of the same-sex relationship of the non-biological parents and the absence of a parent of the opposite gender. Ultimately, through Obergefell, it is “the fundamental right of a child to its mother and father that’s being undermined piece by piece,” Lopez said. Nevertheless, he concluded, though the morality of Obergefell might be out of his hands, “the collateral is not.”

Nicole O’Leary is a sophomore theology and history major living in McGlinn Hall. She recently dreamt that she was canoeing on a mountain lake. If you can make this a reality, contact her at noleary@nd.edu.