Children's needs are 'Greater Than' adults' desires

“When you make husbands and wives optional in marriage, inevitably, mothers and fathers will become optional in parenthood,” Katy Faust told The Stand in a recent interview.

Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, an organization that defends children’s rights to have their biological mother and father, has warned for over a decade that redefining marriage – and by extension, family – would have catastrophic consequences for children.

Faust contends that the current cultural sentiment has been to elevate the desires of adults above the needs of children, a dangerous trend she hopes to reverse through her work at Them Before Us.

“We defend children’s rights in the family. We defend their primary relationship with the two people responsible for their existence,” Faust said. “And when you defend children’s rights to their mother and father, you end up getting the right answer about every marriage and family question and problem that we are facing today.”

Faust explained that all marriage and family dynamics – divorce, cohabitation, polygamy, reproductive technologies, IVF, surrogacy, adoption, etc. – should be viewed through the lens of this question: What about the kids?

“That’s how you’re going to get the correct take on those,” she said.

Putting children’s needs above adults’ desires is also the motivation behind Faust’s most recent initiative, the Greater Than campaign.

Launched in January, Greater Than is a coalition of more than 100 trusted Christian and religious organizations and powerful influencers who have united to “defend the rights of children in law, policy, and culture,” according to its website.

The need

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized gay marriage. That decision fundamentally changed, at least from a legal standpoint, the definition of marriage. Though the decision was hailed as a victory for equality, it had far-reaching, negative implications and unintended consequences for children, according to Faust.

“The Supreme Court ignored the fundamental reality that children come from a mother and father, and they need that man and woman in very distinct ways for their identity, development, and safety,” Faust said.

Faust explained that the Obergefell decision prohibits, on the grounds of discrimination, making any kind of distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples.

“That means states, because they are hamstrung by this unconstitutional framework, are prohibited from elevating and promoting the natural family, even though the heterosexual family structure unites children to their natural parents in most cases,” Faust said.

Conversely, because of that same unconstitutional framework, “States are required to promote family structures that cause children to lose their mother or father – or both, in most cases – just to be in the family,” she explained.

Faust’s observation of the lack of advocacy for children in this area was the impetus for launching the Greater Than campaign.

“We looked around and saw no one mounting any kind of compelling campaign to retake marriage on behalf of children,” Faust said, “so my nonprofit, Them Before Us, kicked off this campaign.”

The reason

Faust explained that her desire to overturn Obergefell is not because she has an axe to grind with the LGBTQ community, but because Obergefell prohibits the law from telling the simple truth about children.

That truth, biologically speaking, Faust said, is that children’s mothers and fathers are never optional.

“It does not matter how many times you repeat ‘love makes a family.’ It doesn’t matter how you tinker with children in laboratories at the moment of their conception. It doesn’t matter what five Supreme Court justices say about the definition of marriage,” Faust said. “Children come from a man and woman.

“They long to be known by that man and woman. They get their biological identity from that man and woman. They’re most likely to be safe and loved when they’re raised by that man and that woman. And they’re developmentally advantaged when they have a mother and a father,” she added.

Faust said these truths will not be changed, despite cultural perception, legal precedents, or technological advancements.

“Those are realities about the child that we can either accept and protect them,” she said, “or we can ignore and children will be victimized.

“We want to overturn Obergefell because the state must get back to prioritizing family structures that protect children, reinforce their identity, maximize their development, and exempt them from so many of the social ills that motherless and fatherless children face.”

The strategy

Faust explained that the campaign operates on three fronts: judicial strategy, public persuasion, and church equipping.

Greater Than’s judicial strategy is designed to challenge the legal framework created by Obergefell.

Faust provided a few examples of how Obergefell reshaped family law.

• Obergefell contributed to changes in parenthood statutes in some
states, erasing references to mother and father and replacing them
with gender-neutral terms such as parent.

• Because of Obergefell, certain fertility benefits, including some IVF
coverage and subsidies, have been extended to same-sex couples.

• By applying Obergefell, later court rulings have required states to
allow same-sex spouses to be listed as parents on birth certificates,
even when one spouse is not the biological parent.

Faust explained that the goal is to force the legal system to simply address reality.

“We are actually not going to be doing anything that radical,” Faust said. “We’re just going to be forcing the law to state the natural realties of the child in the family.”

Faust explained that forcing such legislation will obviously be challenged and put before the high court.

“But then the question before the court is not going to be [this]: How do gay people identify, [and] are they being treated as second-class citizens? It’s not going to focus on the couple’s sad backstory,” Faust said. “The question before the court [that] all our legislation is going to force is this: Do children benefit from their own mother and father, or is a state-assigned stranger just as good?

“Through our judicial strategy, we are simply changing the nature of the question the court is going to be asked,” Faust added.

But Faust understands that legal victories alone will not secure the lasting change needed. Public opinion needs to shift.

“I think we’ve learned from the pro-life movement that it’s not enough for a terrible decision to fall in terms of the courtrooms,” she said. “That’s necessary. We need to change laws, but we also need to change hearts.”

Faust said the campaign has brought on several notable influencers such as Michael Knowles, Allie Beth Stuckey, Lila Rose, and many others who are “on board with helping the public understand the direct connection between gay marriage and child victimization, and natural marriage and child protection.”

Faust explained it is important for the public to understand that it is the children – not the adults – who are deprived and suffer when culture gets marriage wrong.

Another facet of the campaign’s goal to change public opinion involves not necessarily appealing to special revelation (the Bible) but to general revelation instead.

“A lot of arguing about family structure as it relates to the best interest of the child is essentially appealing to God’s world that He made and the natural rules He has embedded in His world,” Faust said. “And the good news is that appealing to His world is never going to conflict with His Word, because the Word of God and the world of God have the same author.”

From a strategic standpoint, Faust contends that when one argues from a natural law perspective, a much wider net will be cast and will likely appeal to a much wider demographic of people.

Beyond the legal landscape and public perception, Faust wants to see the church involved in this battle.

“We want to turn the church into a child-centric fighting force,” she said.

Faust explained that it has traditionally been the church that confronted child abuse or cultural threats to children.

“Whether it was foot binding in China, female genital mutilation in the Islamic world, abortion, or infanticide … the threats to children change, but the church’s response does not,” she said.

The outlook

Despite the challenges, Faust is hopeful. Her optimism comes, at least in part, from what she believes to be the strengths of the campaign’s arguments.

“We have natural law on our side. We have common sense on our side. We have the best social science on our side. And we’ve got judicial precedent on our side,” Faust said.

She does not deny that critics will present a host of studies that seem to contradict her belief that children fare better with their biological mother and father. She responds by pointing out the flawed methodology of such studies and by highlighting the cultural pressure applied to sociologists to be politically correct.

“The best social science we have confirms that biological parents are more connected to, invested in, and protective of kids; that unrelated cohabitating adults elevate risk of abuse and neglect; and mothers and fathers offer distinct and complementary benefits to the child,” Faust stated.

“It’s only miraculously when you study same-sex parenting that suddenly biology is irrelevant, children are just as safe with an unrelated adult, and mothering and fathering doesn’t matter,” she said sarcastically.

Considering the strength of the campaign’s arguments, the increased availability and popularity of conservative media outlets versus a decade ago, and a recent slight drop in public support for gay marriage, Faust believes conditions are favorable for the campaign to ultimately succeed. (See p. 10.)

The confidence

Faust is confident, while simultaneously acknowledging what the Greater Than coalition is up against.

“There are great, great forces opposing us in the cultural space, in the legal space, and the nonprofit space,” she admitted. “We are out-moneyed, out-organized, and out-gunned. But we have truth and Christ on our side, and an absolute determination to never bend, regardless of what people say or how they come at us.

“We are fighting so many Goliaths here, but we will win,” she continued. “Like Nehemiah, God’s people are coming together, and the God of Heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore, we His people are choosing to arise and build.”