‘Today, we take back marriage’

For a decade, cultural elites insisted the argument was over. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 in the UK was treated as final. The 2015 Obergefell ruling in the United States was sold as history’s closing chapter. Anyone who held to the mother-father bond was cast as a relic.

But reality has not cooperated.

A counter-movement is gathering pace as the argument shifts from adult slogans to hard questions about children, stability, and national resilience. The sharpest spearpoint is the US-based “Greater Than” campaign launched last week and built on one idea that cuts through the fog: Children’s rights are Greater Than adult desires.

Led by the organisation Them Before Us, the broad coalition is formidable, and the focus is simple: what children lose when mothers and fathers are treated as optional. Their statement, “Today, We Take Back Marriage”, is available here.

This is not fringe talk. American think tank Brookings is openly discussing the ‘two-parent privilege’ and the price children pay when marriage collapses and fathers disappear from the home.

It has even reached national strategy. The US White House 2025 National Security Strategy says national security “cannot be accomplished without growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children”.

Policy architects are also targeting what the Heritage Foundation labels “bureaugamy”, a welfare design that behaves like a substitute spouse by penalising marriage and sidelining fathers. Coalition for Marriage has already covered that argument here and the full report is here.

Britain cannot hit the snooze button. Coalition for Marriage has warned that 2026 could be the tipping point where deaths outnumber births in the UK. A country that cannot form families cannot renew itself.

The policy direction is not complicated. First, the Government must remove every couple penalty in the benefits system so the State stops charging the poor for committing to each other. Second, tax, benefits and housing policies must properly recognise marriage to support parents during the crucial early years. Third, surrogacy arrangements must be challenged to stop children being treated as commodities. And fourth, restore marriage between a man and a woman as the national gold standard for raising children.

At C4M, we know that marriage is not a lifestyle garnish. The counter-revolution is already under way. The task now is to rebuild the ground-level conditions for a new generation to choose real marriage with confidence. C4M is working with various policy groups with a view to doing just that.