Cordy argued that providing the benefit of legally recognized marriage coaxes straight couples into forming stable family relationships when they have children, which helps society as a whole.Īn "orderly society requires some mechanism for coping with the fact that sexual intercourse commonly results in pregnancy and childbirth. The one justice who dissented in the ruling, Robert Cordy, is credited with introducing the unintended pregnancy concept in his dissent, when he explained that the government does have a stake in defining marriage as only between men and women. The court ruled that the government had no legitimate reason to deny the recognition of marriage to its residents based on sexual orientation. That was by and large enough of a legal argument to win the day every time, until the Massachusetts state Supreme Court became the first court to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003. Those who wanted to prevent gay marriage argued that the federal government was not discriminating against anyone in adhering to a definition of marriage that had prevailed for centuries. When the Supreme Court was first asked to address the issue in the 1970s-when a gay couple sued Minnesota for the right to legally wed-the justices replied that the request did not even raise a federal question worth answering. The argument for the government's right to ban gay marriage has evolved over the years. The brief also argued that preventing gay couples from marrying would not help or hurt the quest to encourage straight couples to marry when they have children. "Marriage is far more than a societal means of dealing with unintended pregnancies," the Justice Department wrote. In the administration's friend of the court brief, the Justice Department took a dim view of the argument. The opponents to gay marriage also argue it's possible the public perception of marriage would change if gay couples were allowed to wed, discouraging straight people from marrying. "Because same-sex relationships cannot naturally produce offspring, they do not implicate the State’s interest in responsible procreation and childrearing in the same way that opposite-sex relationships do," attorneys who are seeking to uphold Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California in 2008, argued in their brief. Clement added in his brief to the Supreme Court arguing to uphold that law that the government has a legitimate interest in solely recognizing marriages between men and women because it encourages them to form stable family units.