FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A coalition of 47 conservative organizations is launching a campaign to challenge the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which the groups claim redefined marriage to emphasize the desires of adults over the needs of children.
The “Greater Than” campaign focuses on one message, which a handful of conservative leaders state clearly in a launch video: “Children are greater than equal, and it’s time we fought for their rights.”
The messaging responds to the LGBTQ+ activist narrative that redefining marriage as between two people, rather than between a man and a woman, involves “equality.”
“Since the redefinition of marriage a decade ago, we’ve seen the consequences: parenthood treated as replaceable, and children deprived of the unique love and guidance only a mother and father can provide,” Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us and a spokeswoman for the campaign, said in a statement Wednesday.
“Ten years of Obergefell have shown us, loud and clear, that children deserve better and that they are Greater Than adult desires—and it’s time we make a change,” she added.
Alongside Them Before Us stand four other core allies: the American Family Association, the Colson Center for Biblical Worldview, the Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family.
The coalition also includes 14 national allies, such as the Christian Medical and Dental Association, the pro-life group Live Action, the Ruth Institute, and the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. Fourteen more state allies include family policy nonprofits across the country, representing Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, among others. Organizers told The Daily Signal that the coalition includes more groups than appear on the website.
The coalition lays out a three-part strategy to overturn Obergefell and same-sex marriage: returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship; changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children; and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.
The Launch Video
“Marriage policy should be about the children,” Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer says in the launch video. “It’s not about bestowing public policy legitimacy and conferring economic benefits when it comes to adults who have their own idiosyncratic desires.”
Colson Center CEO John Stonestreet argues that social science data reveals that kids “do best when they are raised in a home with married, biological mom and dad.”
“We’re prioritizing the fantasies of adults, no matter how earnestly those fantasies are felt, over the real needs and the real good of children,” The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles warns.
Of gay marriage, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler says, “It harms children in virtually every way imaginable.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Delano Squires notes that “every single child, every single human being is the living embodiment of the relationship between exactly one man and one woman.”
“There’s two legitimate ways to unite a child to adults,” Faust, the campaign’s spokeswoman, argues. “The first one is biology: If you made the baby, that baby has a claim to you. The second pathway is adoption, where a child has suffered loss, and a just society responds by placing them with parents who have undergone screening, and vetting, and background checks, to as much as possible, replicate the kind of protectiveness that a biological mother and father would offer the child.”
What Happens If Obergefell Falls
The coalition argues that Obergefell rearranged family law, treating the parent-child relationship as “a configurable legal status rather than a natural bond grounded in biology.”
According to the coalition, if the Supreme Court overturned Obergefell, that would not dissolve existing same-sex marriages or invalidate settled parental determinations.
The coalition also argues that the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2024, only “requires states to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere; it does not require states to license them.” If the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, “the constitutional foundation for mandatory recognition would be significantly weakened.”
The list of allies on the website includes:
- Core Allies: American Family Association, the Colson Center, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Them Before Us
- National Allies: the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Live Action, Firmly Planted Family, The Heidi St. John Podcast, Citizens for Renewing America, Abby Johnson, Steve Deace, Ruth Institute, Pro-Family Legislative Network, (Ron Coleman) Coleman Law Firm, Word on Fire Institute, Center for family and human rights, The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, The White Rose Resistance, Catholic Vote, Family Watch International
- State Allies: the Alaska Family Council, the Indiana Family Institute, the Maryland Family Institute, the Massachusetts Family Institute, the Family Foundation of Kentucky, The Family Leader (Iowa), NC Family, Nebraska Family Alliance, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Wisconsin Family Action, the Louisiana Family Forum, FPIW Action (Washington state), Center for Christian Virtue (Ohio), the Family Council (Arkansas), Frontline (Georgia), and Texas Values
