New York is about to erase “mother” and “father” from state law. Justifiable outrage has erupted across the Right. But if you’re surprised, you weren’t paying attention.
Bills already passed through both chambers of the New York legislature are on their way to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) desk. Under the legislation, “mother” becomes “gestating parent.” “Father” becomes “non-gestating parent.” Gender-specific “paternity” becomes gender-absent “parentage.” The phrase “putative father” — a legal term with centuries of common law history behind it — is replaced with “alleged parent.” Every word that names a sex is being systematically removed from New York’s family statutes.
These changes didn’t come out of nowhere. They are the logical end of a process kicked into motion when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015.
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Children of the ‘constellation’
In Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that same-sex couples needed access to the full “constellation of benefits” that marriage provided. What followed proved that children were among those so-called benefits. In the name of constitutional rights, the law had to accomplish what biology prohibits: making two same-sex adults the legal parents of a child. That required erasing the legal category of mother and father altogether.
The Uniform Law Commission moved quickly. In 2017, the same year Pavan v. Smith required states to place same-sex spouses on birth certificates, the ULC revised its Uniform Parentage Act to “ensure the equal treatment of children born to same-sex couples” by “eliminating gender-based distinctions” throughout parentage law — specifically to “cure the constitutional infirmity” in previous versions. The infirmity? They still said “mother” and “father.”
New York’s version
New York enacted its own UPA, the Child-Parent Security Act, in 2021. The name is a lie. The only thing it secured was access to children by unrelated adults who could avoid the screenings and background checks adoption requires. Children’s “security” was the price.
The CPSA legalized commercial surrogacy, rewrote parentage law using the UPA’s gender-neutral framework, and established what its sponsors called protections for “same-sex and infertile couples.” Upon passage, co-sponsored by New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D), made the connection between parentage and his “marriage” explicit: “My husband and I had our two daughters through surrogacy — but we had to travel 3,000 miles away to California in order to do it. As a gay dad, I’m thrilled parents like us and people struggling with infertility will finally have the chance to create their own families through surrogacy here in New York.”
The bills now heading to Hochul’s desk are not a new initiative. They are the completion of the CPSA’s project. As the 2025 Senate bill makes clear, the CPSA already “uses gender neutral language, underscoring the importance of ‘acknowledgments of parentage,’” and the current legislation follows its lead to retire the “now-outdated” terms “paternity” and “filiation.” These bills are not breaking new. They’re finishing the job.
What it costs children
This is the so-what that defenders of the new regime do not want you to name: When you can’t say “mother,” you can’t defend a child’s right to one. The language isn’t incidental to the project — it’s the end game. Scrubbing “mother” and “father” from the statute is how you legally normalize their absence in a child’s life. Motherless and fatherless by design becomes not a loss to be acknowledged but a family configuration to be celebrated.
The children who have lived this know the difference. Ross Johnston had two mothers, and even though one of them took on the more “masculine” role in the family, he speaks movingly of how he longed for a father’s presence in his life. Samantha Wiessing was raised by her father and his boyfriend for much of her early life. She shares about her “mother-hunger,” gravitating toward any woman in her world, asking each if she could call them “mother.”
Both Ross and Samantha affirm that they had a roof over their head and food in their stomach, and that both adults in their home loved them. But there was still something — actually, someone — missing.
No one should be surprised that many kids with same-sex parents struggle. It confirms everything we know about child safety, development, identity, and self-perception — children thrive when raised by their own married mother and father. Their absence creates pain and disadvantage.
Stop being surprised. Start working.
When activists said they were going to redefine the family, they meant every word of it. The redefinition of marriage was never the destination — it was the mechanism. Obergefell made men and women optional in marriage. The UPA made them optional in parenthood. The CPSA made them optional in New York. The bills on Hochul’s desk align the language with the reality laid out 11 years ago. Each step followed the last with perfect legal logic.
New York didn’t invent this. They inherited it from Obergefell — and they’re proud of it.
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The only off-ramp is to retake the legal definition of marriage on behalf of children. My nonprofit organization is spearheading the Greater Than campaign to do exactly that. We argue that children’s rights are greater than adult desires.
For the past 11 years, we’ve watched Obergefell destroy the natural family. The answer is not flashes of internet outrage when the legal categories of mother and father are destroyed. It is to undo the decision that made the destruction not only possible but inevitable.
Katy Faust is the founder and president of Them Before Us and spokeswoman for the Greater Than campaign.