Cleary Gottlieb Authors Amicus Brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Behalf of the American Sociological Association in Support of Same-Sex Marriage

In the same-sex marriage cases pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Cleary Gottlieb filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the American Sociological Association, urging affirmance of the lower courts’ rulings striking down, in one case, Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage and, in the other case, Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage.

While proponents of the respective marriage bans assert that excluding same-sex couples from the right to marry would benefit children, Cleary Gottlieb’s brief on behalf of the ASA explains that the consensus among social scientists is that children fare just as well when raised by same-sex parents as when raised by opposite-sex parents. Cleary Gottlieb’s brief also demonstrates that the studies cited by those opposing marriage equality do not even address children raised by same-sex parents and so do not, and cannot, undermine the social science consensus. As pointed out in the brief, to the extent the social science research demonstrates that stability is a key factor in child wellbeing, it supports the argument that extending the rights, responsibilities and protections of marriage to same-sex couples would improve—not harm—the outcomes enjoyed by the children of such parents.

View Cleary Gottlieb’s amicus brief from the American Sociological Association.