Two weeks later, after more than a year of deliberations, Washington's high court came down on exactly the same track, declaring that the state's Defense of Marriage Act "is constitutional because the legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children's biological parents. Allowing same-sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature's view, further these purposes."

Three major courts, all saying the same thing: the government's interest in marriage is tied inseparably to its interest in children. The primary reason for licensing marriage is to ensure the best possible environment for raising healthy children.

True, no study yet exists comparing children raised from birth to adulthood by two men or two women with those raised by their own biological parents. But we do have the clear, eloquent evidence of nature itself. If two dads were the ideal for raising a child … two dads would be able to produce a child. If two moms were the ideal … two moms would be able to impregnate each other.

Yes, heterosexual couples also adopt or artificially inseminate or use a surrogate parent. But those options are still, statistically, an aberration. It is the design of nature that children are entrusted to parents of opposite sexes. The mix has not only a decisive genetic impact on the child, but a profoundly psychological one, as well.

The jurists in these recent cases have wisely affirmed the obligation of the state to facilitate that natural impact by sanctioning marriage. But in New Jersey, those pushing the same-sex agenda have successfully argued that the state’s first obligation is to underwrite the romantic inclinations of its adults, rather than protect its children.

It is a perfectly politically-correct decision. But it is not one that those who truly care about children – and indeed, the same-sex couples themselves – can applaud.