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Lofton and rational basis
Cooper moves on: I want to conclude this piece of my argument by calling the court’s attention to a case from the 11th Circuit called Lofton. The 11th circuit upheld a foreign statute that prohibited gay adoptions. At the heart of that case was this consideration that we have been discussing, the core procreative element or purpose of marriage and the idea that was displayed again in the official ballot intiative argument that many many people believe it is best for a child to be raised by the child’s own mother and father. What the court there concluded, and I might add the expert for the plaintiffs in that case was Dr. Lamb . . . Ultimately the court concluded that the evidence submitted there by Dr. Lamb was not adequate to render irrational the common sense belief that children do best when raised by their own mother and father.
You may recall me quoting from the NY Court of Appeals that common sense proposition. Taking all this available information into account, the legislature could rationally conclude that the married opposite sex couples are the optimum conditions for childrearing.
Same-sex parenting has not proved itself “beyond reasonable scientific dispute” that it is optimal form of childrearing. The standard is whether or not the evidence produced by the plaintiffs is more than just opinion evidence but rises to the level of no debatable scientific facts. That it couldn’t be said with respect to the common sense belief that many many people hold, and many researchers hold, that the optimal child rearing parental structure is the traditional intact family.
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