Just a day after my post on the right-wing "marriage movement" conference at the Georgia Supreme Court, an article by Justin Jouvenal at salon.com named Leah Sears, the court's Chief Justice, as a possible contender for a seat on the US Supreme Court.
This would be a disaster for LGBT families. As a board member of the Institute for American Values, Leah Sears is a core part of a movement that blames every social problem on the decline of life-long heterosexual marriage. One of IAV's most recent publications argues that fathers uniquely matter in the lives of children. This is a classic component of the argument made against parenting (and marriage) by lesbian couples, as well as single mothers. Yet a universally acknowledged expert on fathers, Dr. Michael Lamb, who has done decades of research on fathers, concludes otherwise. Read a summary of Lamb's testimony in the recent challenge to Florida's ban on adoption by lesbians and gay men.
On the subject of gender and parenting, here's how the judge in that case summarized Lamb's testimony:
Dr. Lamb opined that the assumption that children need a mother and a father in order to be well adjusted is outdated and not supported by the research. According to the witness, there is no optimal gender combination of parents; neither men nor women have a greater ability to parent. Additionally, today, two-parent households are less attached to static roles than in the past. Moreover, there is a well established and generally accepted consensus in the field that children do not need a parent of each gender to adjust healthily.
Take that, Leah Sears. But take it someplace other than the US Supreme Court.
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