Amici are scholars and professors of family law and the law of equal protection. Amici submit this brief to respond directly to arguments advanced by the State of Louisiana that its laws prohibiting same-sex marriage2 are justified because they advance child welfare. Specifically, the State asserts that its laws advance child welfare by promoting Louisiana’s interest in: (1) linking children with their biological parents to prevent the social stigma associated with being “illegitimate” and (2) establishing the child as a member of an intact family resulting from the marriage of the mother and alleged father. These purported justifications express and enforce a bare preference for the children of opposite-sex couples as the only children entitled to the type of permanency, stability, security and so-called “ideal” parenting arrangements that the laws allegedly encourage. However, this justification obscures the laws’ real function, which is to draw invidious distinctions between families headed by opposite-sex parents and families headed by same-sex parents, and, by implication, between the children in these families. Amici’s scholarship demonstrates that Louisiana’s marriage laws are categorically impermissible under this Court’s equal protection jurisprudence because they punish children based on realities beyond their control.