The Union government’s affidavit to the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage insinuates that such couples are less suitable than their heterosexual counterparts for rearing children. The affidavit claims the institution of marriage, defined as comprising a biological man and a biological woman, places upon spouses the “joint responsibility for supporting and raising children born of the marriage and to ensure their mental and psychological growth in the most natural way possible.” The government evidently believes it is unnatural for same-sex couples to raise children.

This was not the opinion of the United States of America’s Supreme Court. In the 2015 Obergefell vs Hodges case, the Supreme Court took into consideration the development of children, either adopted or born through artificial insemination, who grew up in same-sex households. Persuaded by a vast body of literature showing that the quality of parenting and family relationships have a stronger influence on child growth than family structure—that is, number of parents, biological vs adoptive parenthood, and parental sexual orientation—the judges ruled, 5-4, that gay and lesbian persons enjoy the fundamental right to marry.