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Scholars at UCLA's Williams Institute Analyze New York Case Rejecting Same-Sex Marriage
July 6, 2006

Today, the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) issued a ruling upholding the state’s current exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage. The Court expressed its hope that the legislature would ultimately decide the issue.

Judge Robert S. Smith applied the court's most deferential standard to review the constitutionality of the current New York law that limits marriage to different-sex couples. This standard upholds laws as long as they have a "rational basis."

Judge Smith found two sufficient rationales for the state legislature to invest the benefits of marriage into heterosexual couples while excluding gay couples, both relate to providing for children.

First, the Court found that the legislature could determine that marriage promotes stability and permanence in relationships, that this stability benefits children, and that since heterosexual couples are more likely to have children, the legislature could reasonably focus the resources of marriage on them.

Second, the Court found that the legislature could rationally believe, based on "intuition and experience," that it is better for children to grow up with one mother and one father as role models. The Court considered a number of studies of children of same-sex parents, but found that they did "not establish beyond doubt" that “children fare equally well in same-sex and opposite-sex households.”

Recent research and analysis by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, a national research center on sexual orientation law and public policy, contradicts the Court's reasoning.

First, in a study released in September 2005, Same-Sex Couples And Same-Sex Couples Raising Children In New York: Data From Census 2000 (pdf), the Williams Institute found that 28% of the 46,490 same-sex couples in the state of New York are raising children—more than 26,000 children under age 18. In addition, Census data indicate that these families could benefit from the protections that marriage provides. The Williams Institute's Census analysis shows that:

• Same-sex parents are more likely than married parents to belong to racial or ethnic minorities, and to be Spanish speakers, non-citizens, and/or disabled.

• The children of same-sex couples are similarly diverse: 51% percent are children-of-color.

Chart 1: Race of Children Raised by Same-sex Couples in New York

• Most children (83%) of same-sex couples are either “natural born” or step-children.

• Compared to married couples with children, same-sex parents have fewer economic resources to care for their children.

o Same-sex parents have lower household incomes: the median household income of same-sex parents in New York is $11,000 lower than the median household income of married couples with children.

o Same-sex parents have lower homeownership rates: the homeownership rate for same-sex parents is 17% lower than the rate for married parents.

o Same-sex parents have lower levels of education than do married couples.

“Many same-sex couples, particularly those with children, are economically vulnerable, especially as they lack the support and protections that marriage provides to other New York families,” said Gary J. Gates, Senior Research Fellow at the Williams Institute.

Second, researchers at the Williams Institute have also reviewed the social science studies on the children of same-sex marriage. They have concluded that while research on the impact of gay and lesbian parents on their children is relatively new and tends to be based on small samples of predominantly white and relatively well-off same-sex parents, the findings across these studies are remarkably consistent in showing no negative consequences for children being raised by lesbian and gay parents with regard to standard child well-being measures. A summary of the Williams Institute’s analysis can be found at http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/press/GayParents.html

"In fact, the New York Court acknowledges that there are persuasive arguments contradicting its analysis—including that gay couples are raising children, many married different-sex couples are not, and that there are great children being raised by single and same-sex parents. What the Court ultimately holds is that the legislature doesn't have to be right or even very precise to meet the rational basis test," says Williams Institute Executive Director Brad Sears. "It can reasonably believe things that others reasonably disagree with and that it might disagree with in the future. To that extent, the Court leaves plenty of room for the legislature to change the marriage law."