As the Supreme Court prepares to address marriage equality, one 12-year-old asked the chief judge to consider his own family when making the final decision.
Daniel Martinez-Leffew, the adopted son of two gay dads, wrote to a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts–himself the father of two adopted kids — urging him to embrace marriage equality by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8.
Daniel read his letter aloud in a video posted to YouTube. As a young child, he was informed he “unadoptable” because of suffering from Goldenhar syndrome, a genetic disorder. Then, when he was five, his two dads, Bryan and Jay, took him into their home. He considered himself “lucky” that his “two dads came along.”
“I know you have a tough decision to make with the gay marriage issue, but my family is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other,” Daniel said in the video, addressing the Chief Justice. “It’s especially tough for you because I know you don’t necessarily believe in gay marriage, religiously. Lucky for us though, you don’t believe in taking away our right, even from people like us.”
For the past four years, Daniel and his family have been making YouTube videos to “show people who don’t understand that our family is like any other.”
Next week, the Supreme Court is scheduled to take up the constitutionality of DOMA and, in a separate case, California’s ban on same sex marriage, Prop 8.
Sarah Muller