Cleary Gottlieb today filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in the marriage equality cases pending before the Supreme Court of the United States. The brief urges reversal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s ruling upholding same-sex marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.
While many proponents of the same-sex marriage bans assert that excluding same-sex couples from the right to marry would benefit children, Cleary Gottlieb’s brief on behalf of the ASA explains that the consensus among social scientists is that children fare just as well when raised by same-sex parents as when raised by different-sex parents. Cleary Gottlieb’s brief also demonstrates that the studies cited by those opposing marriage equality do not even address children raised by same-sex parents and so do not, and could not, undermine the social science consensus. As pointed out in the brief, to the extent the social science research demonstrates that stability is a key factor in child wellbeing, the research supports the conclusion that extending the rights, responsibilities and protections of marriage to same-sex couples would improve—not harm—child outcomes.
Read Cleary Gottlieb’s amicus brief on behalf of the American Sociological Association here.