Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear arguments for a challenge to the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.

Shortly after the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk and Christian woman, was prosecuted for refusing to sign same-sex marriage licenses due to religious conviction. So, she appealed, asking the high court to consider her case and to correct many wrongs done against her. Many saw this as a chance to reverse the controversial ruling — an opportunity seemingly slammed shut by SCOTUS. While some have expressed optimism that it’s only a matter of time before this case is brought up again, there’s another conversation taking place: Who’s the real victim of Obergefell?

While Christians have been significantly affected by the decision to make same-sex marriage a constitutional right, Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, argues that children are the ones being harmed most. Many believe that “Obergefell needs to be overturned on constitutional grounds,” Faust said on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch,” but “I would say Obergefell needs to be overturned on the grounds that it victimizes children.”

Faust explained that “even though Kim Davis is a victim of gay marriage … she is not the primary victim of Obergefell. The primary victims … are the children.” Why? Because while adults caught up in the shockwaves of the 2015 decision may find themselves having to avoid violating their conscience while standing firm in truth, “what gay marriage did is it set in motion a process to strip children of their mother and father in law.”

In the last decade, Faust argued that the words “mothers and fathers” have been largely “stripped” out of the federal government’s “parenthood status.” Additionally, “they have redefined infertility so that a single man, a single woman, two men, two women, can have their IVF treatments, which would require a child lose their mother or father through [that] treatment” — subsidizing them in the process through insurance or government action. “In some cases,” Faust emphasized, “they’ve created new pathways for parenthood that don’t have to do with a biological connection or an adoption recognition. It’s simply acquiring a child through your intent to parent them. And so, we’ve actually seen a huge overhaul of the law as a result of Obergefell.”

“[W]e were promised that this was just about a personal relationship between two adults,” Faust stressed. Some argued it was about privacy, others “just [wanted] to have the insurance benefits that heterosexual couples get.” But “that’s not what happened. The Supreme Court made husbands and wives optional in marriage. And as a result, mothers and fathers have become optional in parenthood laws. And when … you look at that from the child’s perspective, that’s an injustice.”

“Let’s go down that path,” said “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice. Because “at least for most people, when they think of Obergefell, they think of a redefinition of marriage. But what you are bringing to light right now is that this also … is a redefinition of parenthood.” Faust agreed. “What if Justice Kennedy … when he wrote his opinion on Obergefell … said that same-sex couples should be afforded the same constellation of benefits as heterosexual couples [that] there can be no distinction between two men and a man and a woman when they get married?” she asked. “Now, the problem is that marriage is the center of marriage and family law. And when you swap out a procreative definition of marriage for a definition that validates the identity and the desires and the feelings of adults, what you’re going to do is require that children conform to that identity.” This, she argued, is “exactly what’s happened.”

Faust continued, “[W]e had close to three dozen states that had defined marriage as between one man and one woman in their constitution or through a vote. And we had laws that exalted the natural family that said … children do best when they’re raised by their married mother and father.” And yet, “how long has it been since you’ve heard a politician say that? It’s been about 10 years.” Legalizing same-sex marriage, she asserted, served as the basis for what turned children’s needfor their mother and father as a means of human flourishing into an act of discrimination. With one decision, Faust noted, this natural framework became “unconstitutional.”

As a result, she said, the law then “had to deliver. It had to facilitate something that nature prohibits, which is making two men or two women the parents of a child.” So, yes, she stated, “We have seen a new invention of parenthood” — “wars over birth certificates,” having “children through reproductive technologies,” and more. Faust was clear: Obergefell “was not simply about what two adults do in the privacy of their bedroom. This actually changed the way we regard the family, and children themselves, in our laws.”

Hice explained that this shines a spotlight on “how problematic it can be when courts deal with the wrong victim and have the wrong question introduced.” Faust agreed, stating, “I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that when you take a case to the court and it’s the wrong victim or you’re asking the wrong question, you’ll get a wrong decision that can sometimes reaffirm a previous bad decision.” Ultimately, what Davis endured, which included hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fines and jail time, did make her “a victim,” but “she’s not the ultimate victim,” Faust argued.

It’s not necessarily about asking SCOTUS if someone needs to bake a cake for a same-sex couple or sign their marriage license, Faust contended. “[T]hat matters, but that does not ultimately matter. The question the court needs to answer is, does a child’s own mother and father benefit them in ways that state-assigned adults do not? That is the question that the court needs to ask,” because “the ultimate victims are children who lose their right to their own mother and father because the court has enshrined a false definition of marriage.”

This is why Faust, alongside the support of Family Research Council, has launched a national coalition rooted in one purpose: “[W]e are going to retake marriage on behalf of children, and we are going to bring the kind of cases that represent the right victim — children — and ask the right question.” As Faust explained, the question is, “Do kids need their own mother and father? And if they say, ‘Yes, children have been victimized because of gay marriage,’ and ‘Yes, they do need their mother and father,’ then I guess they don’t get the full constellation of benefits that were promised before” — not “if those benefits involve delivering them somebody else’s child.”

How do people need to be praying? “Pray for this coalition that my nonprofit Them Before Us is spearheading,” Faust urged. “[And pray] for the church leaders, the conservative influencers, the heads of organizations that care so much about marriage and family. We need to retake marriage on behalf of children. This is not about adult fulfillment. This is about justice for the least of these. So, pray. Pray that we can change hearts and pray that we can change laws.”