Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/16-992_868c.pdf
Page Number: 4

4 

PAVAN v. SMITH 

Per Curiam 

at 23).  Indeed, in listing those terms and conditions—the
“rights,  benefits,  and  responsibilities”  to  which  same-sex 
couples,  no  less  than  opposite-sex  couples,  must  have
access—we  expressly  identified  “birth  and  death  certifi-
cates.”  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 17).  That was no accident: 
Several of the plaintiffs in Obergefell challenged a State’s
refusal  to  recognize  their  same-sex  spouses  on  their  chil-
dren’s birth certificates.  See  DeBoer v.  Snyder, 772 F. 3d 
388, 398–399 (CA6 2014).  In considering those challenges, 
we  held  the  relevant  state  laws  unconstitutional  to  the 
extent  they  treated  same-sex  couples  differently  from 
opposite-sex couples.  See 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 23). 
That holding applies with equal force to §20–18–401. 

Echoing  the  court  below,  the  State  defends  its  birth-
certificate law on the ground that being named on a child’s
birth  certificate  is  not  a  benefit  that  attends  marriage. 
Instead,  the  State  insists,  a  birth  certificate  is  simply  a 
device  for  recording  biological  parentage—regardless  of 
whether  the  child’s  parents  are  married.    But  Arkansas 
law makes birth certificates about more than just genetics. 
As  already  discussed,  when  an  opposite-sex  couple  con-
ceives a child by way of anonymous sperm donation—just 
as  the  petitioners  did  here—state  law  requires  the  place-
ment  of  the  birth  mother’s  husband  on  the  child’s  birth 
certificate.  See supra, at 2.  And that is so even though (as 
the  State  concedes)  the  husband  “is  definitively  not  the 
biological father” in those circumstances.  Brief in Opposi-
tion 4.*  Arkansas has thus chosen to make its birth certif-

—————— 

* As  the  petitioners  point  out,  other  factual  scenarios  (beyond  those 
present  in  this  case)  similarly  show  that  the  State’s  birth  certificates
are about more than genetic parentage.  For example, when an Arkan-
sas  child  is  adopted,  the  State  places  the  child’s  original  birth  certifi-
cate under seal and issues a new birth certificate—unidentifiable as an 
amended  version—listing  the  child’s  (nonbiological)  adoptive  parents. 
See  Ark.  Code  §§20–18–406(a)(1),  (b)  (2014);  Ark.  Admin.  Code 
007.12.1–5.5(a) (Apr. 2016).