A decade after the Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land, momentum is building on the right to reestablish the traditional definition of matrimony in the name of prioritizing children over adults.
More than 40 conservative groups have united behind the Greater Than campaign, a movement to “take back marriage” by restoring the legal and cultural primacy of the “natural mother-father-child bond.”
That means passing laws and bringing court cases aimed at challenging Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the high court’s 5-4 decision that found marriage equality is protected by the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“No nation that has redefined marriage has ever tried to reclaim it. Until now,” said Them Before Us, the children’s rights group founded by Katy Faust, in a Wednesday announcement on Substack.
“Ten years after Obergefell, the truth is undeniable: there’s a direct line between gay marriage and child victimization,” said the statement. “Today, we launch Greater Than because children deserve more than adult desire dressed up as equality; they deserve their mother and father, united and protected in law, and honored in culture.”
Most Americans probably haven’t heard of Them Before Us, but they might recognize the names of other Greater Than coalition members, including Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, American Family Association and Colson Center.
Also backing the campaign are Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, Princeton professor Robert P. George, and conservative influencers such as Abby Johnson, Allie Beth Stuckey, Steve Deace, Michael Knowles and Josh Hammer.
“When Obergefell redefined marriage to include same-sex couples, it was billed as a win for adult equality,” said Live Action President Lila Rose in the Greater Than launch video. “In reality, it created inequality for children. It made our children less than.”
The organization’s name and its logo, a yellow-on-blue mathematical “greater than” sign, represent a not-so-subtle dig at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ group, whose symbol is a yellow-on-blue equal sign.
The coalition argues that Obergefell forced legal changes that erased sex-based parenthood, downgraded biological bonds between parents and children, allowed alterations to birth certificates, redefined infertility and handed parental rights to adults without biological ties or adoption-level screening.
James Obergefell of the Human Rights …
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Ms. Faust said that “when we made husbands and wives optional in marriage, mothers and fathers became optional in parenthood law.
“The problem is that for children, their mother and father are never optional,” she told host Tony Perkins on the Family Research Council’s “Washington Watch” show. “It always leaves a lifelong wound, it always destabilizes their existence, it hampers their identity formation, it hinders their development, and very often it places them in homes that are statistically risky, elevating risks of abuse and neglect.”
The goal is to change public opinion by moving the focus from adults to children, mobilize the church into a “child-centered fighting force,” and enact state laws and policies that will put the issue on a path to the Supreme Court.
“We want to tell the court that they need to make a choice,” said Ms. Faust. “They can either have gay marriage, or they can protect children’s rights to their mother and father, but they can’t do both, and I think that they’ll choose the kids.”
A 2024 Williams Institute study found that about 2 million children are being raised in an LGBTQ single-parent home, and 300,000 are being raised by same-sex parents.
Prominent gay couples with children include Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and first gentleman Marlon Reis, actors Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, comedian Wanda Sykes and Alex Sykes, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Chasten Buttigieg.
Studies on childhood outcomes have produced conflicting results. Advocates on both sides of the debate can point to research that shows children do best when raised by a mother and father or fare just as well when raised in same-sex households.
Pete Buttigieg said in 2023 that his family “deserves to be supported just like every American family.”
It’s this simple: Child needs > Adult desires
Join the #GreaterThan movement. pic.twitter.com/sYOeYWQlXC
— Greater Than Campaign (@MakeKidsGreater) January 28, 2026
Certainly the conservatives have their work cut out for them. Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans support same-sex marriage, according to a 2025 Gallup poll.
President Trump has shown zero interest in tackling the issue, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is a married gay man with two children. The Republican Party removed opposition to same-sex marriage from its platform in 2024.
Meanwhile, Democrats struggling to defend transgender athletes in women’s sports would undoubtedly welcome an opportunity to change the subject to gay marriage.
“Repealing Obergefell would achieve absolutely nothing, except for making GOP candidates poison at the ballot box,” said the (Normal) Gay Redneck account on X.
Behind the scenes, however, gay marriage’s popularity is waning on the right. While the Gallup poll showed overall support for same-sex marriage remained strong last year at 68%, the survey also found that Republican support dropped to 41%, down from 55% in 2021.
In June, the Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly for a resolution endorsing “laws that affirm that marriage is between one man and one woman,” as well as overturning the Obergefell decision.
The 2025 National Conservatism conference in September, an event whose speakers included White House officials and Republican lawmakers, featured a session titled “Overturn Obergefell.”
Andrew T. Walker, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said the panel’s very existence indicates that a zeitgeist shift is in the air.
“Having panel discussions on overturning Obergefell was unthinkable five years ago. Most mainstream conservative organizations wouldn’t broach the subject,” Mr. Walker said in a Sept. 3 post on X. “But people kept making the arguments, so here we are. Who knows what the next ten years will bring in helping overturn this rogue, anti-reality ruling.”
The campaign has drawn comparisons to the pro-life movement’s 49-year fight to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade.
For years, the effort was deemed futile — until the court struck down Roe in 2022.
“As pro-lifers have done for decades now on the issue of abortion,” said the Colson Center in a Thursday post, “so the Greater Than coalition is committed to the legal and cultural work necessary to protect children.”
