According to the Huffington Post, Zach Wahls once announced to a group of Iowa lawmakers: “the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero effect on the content of my character.”
Wahls has two mothers, and has stayed busy talking to many audiences on growing up with lesbian mothers. His testimony went viral. He has spoken about the difficulty of getting marriage rights for LGBTQ. He consults for LGBTQ rights groups, and attempts to advance those rights in Iowa.
At the time of the testimony, Wahls was an engineering student at the University of Iowa. He is currently leading a campaign with Scouts for Equality to put an end to the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay members.
Since Wahls’ testimony, children of all ages have supported same-sex marriage across the United States. For instance, a 12-year-old boy told the Rhode Island Senate judiciary committee in mid-March 2013 that his two moms wanted “to be treated fairly.”
However, some children have spoken up against marriage equality. This was the situation with an 11-year-old girl who testified before the Minnesota House Committee on Civil Law when officials went back and forth on a same-sex marriage bill. The bill was ultimately passed by the committee, and awaits a vote in the Senate and House.
According to the Huffington Post, the girl began her testimony by thanking the committee for letting her to speak and read from a prepared speech: “Even though I’m only 11 years old, I know that everyone deserves to have a mom and a dad.”
She spoke against the bill: “If you change the law to say two moms and two dads can get married, it would take away something very important for children like me across the state.”
The girl spoke about the importance of her mother: “she teaches me things about being a girl” She said her dad assisted her in confidence.
After the speech, Jeff Evans, the girl’s dad, informed CNS News that he noticed some individuals posting insulting remarks about his daughter on the Internet. Evans said the comments were: “representative of where political discourse is in our country, where you can’t take a position without receiving a great deal of flak, which is unfortunate,” according to the Huffington Post.
Another girl, age 14, also spoke against gay marriage and afterwards received hate mail and threats against her life, according to LifeSiteNews.com.
NPR reports that news of young people testifying about same-sex marriage is not shocking since a lot of the controversy centers around their welfare.