Utah’s Defense of Gay Marriage Ban Now Even Less About Actual Gay People

Utah’s ban on recognizing
same-sex marriages, struck down by a federal judge last year, is
now before a three-judge panel at the 10th Circuit Court of
Appeals.
To keep us all in suspense, one judge appears friendly to the
state’s argument, one appears to want to strike the law down, and
one had tough questions for both sides.

I’ve previously
noted the creepy statist paternalism of Utah’s defense of its
gay marriage ban; several of their arguments revolve around the
state giving heterosexual women the proper messaging that they’re
supposed to marry men and have children, and somehow letting gays
marry screws that all up. Their defense just got a little bit
stranger and even less about actual gay people.

Utah originally drew from the controversial study from Mark
Regnerus, whose report that children of gay parents are less happy
than children of straight parents has been attacked for poor
methodology. (I explained the problems previously
here.) Michigan also used Regenerus’ study and brought him in
as a witness to defend the state’s ban. But a judge blasted his
research and
struck the state’s ban down.

So this week Utah sent a notice to the court attempting to
de-emphasize the role of the Regenerus study in its defense of a
same-sex marriage ban. This is what they say as they downplay the
importance of Regnerus to the state’s case:

As the State’s briefing makes clear, the State’s principal
concern is the potential long-term impact of a redefinition of
marriage on the children of heterosexual parents. The
debate over man-woman versus same-sex parenting has little if any
bearing on that issue, given that being raised in a same-sex
household would normally not be one of the alternatives available
to children of heterosexual parents.

The italics are in the original letter. BuzzFeed has
the whole short but amazing letter posted
here. I will be curious to see how the court might respond to
the argument that a ban on gay marriage recognition has nothing to
do with gay families at all.