Robert Oscar Lopez: Same-Sex Marriage May Lead to Financial Reparations for the Children of Gay Parents

Robert Oscar Lopez is a bisexual man who opposes same-sex parenting. His parents split when he was young and he was raised principally by his mother. They spent most weekends growing up with his mother's longtime girlfriend and eventually moved in together when he was in his late teens. His mother subsequently died and he spent a period of his late teens/early 20s experimenting sexually and prostituting himself. He eventually reconnected with his father and settled down. He now works professionally to oppose same-sex marriage because of his experience as a man whose mother had a girlfriend -- even though they never married or even lived together for most of his youth.

Lopez published an article in American Thinker anticipating reparation awards for the children of same-sex couples within 15 years should the U.S. Supreme Court rule in favor of nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage:

Over time, there is no doubt that there will be at least 100,000 citizens, probably well over 500,000, placed into same-sex homes entirely or predominantly because of the state’s response to demands for expanded marriage rights from gay lobbying organizations.

These citizens will not have chosen to be deprived of a parent of one gender and subjected to the authority of an additional guardian of the other gender – these are citizens for whom the choice will have been made by the government (a government run by an older generation), when they were infants, or not even born yet, and had no way to consent to or understand what was being done to them.

A sizable number of these citizens could come together and document losses, damages, or “pain and suffering” incurred because they were forced to grow up in a same-sex parenting home as opposed to a home with a mother and father. (Picture how “pain and suffering” was just used by a lesbian couple to levy a $135,000 fine on Sweet Cakes by Melissa.) If so, there will be grounds for later Congresses, Supreme Courts, and presidential administrations – ones that aren’t as cowed by the gay lobby as our current leaders – to go back and investigate how gay marriage passed, how it led to depriving children of a mother or father, and who has to pay up...

This year, much of the Supreme Court’s decision about gay marriage will hinge on the case of Ms. April DeBoer of Michigan. She and her lesbian partner adopted children individually but claim that the state of Michigan needs to issue them a marriage license so that each can become a legal parents of her partner’s children. 

The DeBoer v. Snyder case insists that children should be subject to the parental authority of gay adults who are sleeping with one of their parents, rather than the authority of their father and mother. In many adoption cases likely to be affected by this scenario, the birth parents decided to surrender custody to an individual without knowing or agreeing to the fact that the individual would get into a gay relationship and then place the child under the gay lover’s power, too. Should DeBoer end with a gay SCOTUS victory, birth parents will be given cold comfort if the children they consign to adoption end up playing Cinderella to gay stepparents. 

But on an even more basic level, if the Supreme Court sides with Ms. DeBoer, they will be giving gay adults the right to force children to grow up without something that the vast majority of their peers have: a mother and father. On top of that will be added the problem of denying citizens their heritage. If this ends in a reparations trial decades down the line, we can’t say there weren’t ample warning signs of what was to come.

I don't doubt that not all children are happy with their gay or lesbian parents and wish that fate had placed them elsewhere. In fact, I have worked with a handful of children who were removed from a lesbian parent because of abuse and/or mental instability, as well as a handful of now-adult children who have reconnected with their birth families instead of their adoptive families for a variety of reasons.

To be fair, my son's birth dad also has no contact with his own adoptive parents; choosing instead to connect with his birth parents. His adoptive parents were married heterosexual parents. Heck, his adoptive father was a strict Lutheran pastor.

In fact, I know several adults who were removed from their birth families -- usually as older children -- and cared for by others as foster children and/or who were adopted and then later reconnected with portions of their birth family. Which isn't to say that some don't maintain relationships with their adoptive families. I'm just staying that there are people who feel like they missed out on something when they were adopted or placed in foster care.

Then again, there are children who were never in foster care or adopted or the product of IVF treatments or surrogacy or who didn't have step-parents who nonetheless grew up disenfranchised from their parents.

This is all part of the emotional complexities of family life and hardly likely to result in financial reparations.

But it should be interesting if someone ever does try to use their same-sex parents to justify financial reparations. My guess is that the effort, assuming it happens, will be orchestrated by a legal firm connect with right wing political causes.