West Virginia v. B. P. J. · ¶172

The plaintiff Caban, though, did not fit the justification underlying the State’s classification: He was an unwed father who had “a relationship with his children fully comparable to that of the mother,” so the application of the classification to him did not further the State’s interests. Id., at 389. Confronted with this difference, the Court held that “[i]n those cases where the father never has come forward to participate in the rearing of his child, nothing in the Equal Protection Clause preclude[d] the State from withholding from him the privilege of vetoing the adoption of that child.” Id., at 392. When, however, “the father has established a substantial relationship” with the child, the State had failed to show that the use of sex bore “a substantial relationship to” the State’s justifications. Id., at 393. As a result, the Court held, the law as applied to fathers like Caban…

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