A gay couple sued the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vermont for one dollar. Kate Becker and Ming Linsley of Brooklyn, New York with the assistance of the ACLU charge the owners of the inn with discrimination for not hosting a gay wedding reception.

The business owners Jim and Mary O'Reilly are Catholics who say hosting a gay wedding reception “goes against everything that we as Catholics believe in.” Catholics celebrate gender-diverse marriages that include one man and one woman.

Statistically children are better off financially and emotionally when they are raised in a home with one man and one woman. Indeed, many Americans believe children should have a mother and a father. But same sex marriage activists don’t. They claim families don’t need a father’s manly protection or his very person. Dad is excluded because of his gender.

Through the ages children have lacked fathers due to accident or misfortune. Fathers could be missing because of divorce or death. Some dads leave temporarily, away on business or stationed overseas in the military. When I was two years old, my father returned home from Viet Nam. I ran the other way in fear because I didn’t recognize him. Now he is my hero.

But this new fatherless trend is different because it is by design. To show their tolerance for gays, lawmakers have declared that dads are unimportant. In effect they say being gay is more important to the state than having a father. And in the case of two men getting “married” they claim that females are unnecessary. After judging that fathers and mothers are unimportant, legislators codified gender segregation into marriage law. All this to prove they are nonjudgmental towards gays.

What does this mean for the future? Certainly we’ll see more lawsuits. If the Wildflower Inn loses the case and hands over a dollar, this will set a dangerous precedent for businesses and employees throughout Vermont. Who knows how much money the next gay couple will sue for? Hundreds? Thousands?

But it can go both ways.

For example, what if a lesbian couple has a daughter with the help of a sperm donor? And the daughter grows up without a father, without a chance to form a relationship with a member of the opposite sex in the home during her developmental years?  No testosterone, only estrogen in the house? Inspired by the example of Kate and Ming who sued for one dollar, what if she takes the state to court for gender segregation in its marriage law? What if she sues the state for one dad?

One dollar is a symbolic pittance. One dad is priceless.