Texas Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott argued in the state’s Friday brief defending the gay marriage ban that it does not matter how the ban actually impacts children.

Abbott wrote that as long as it’s rational to believe that a law will further the state’s interests, it does not matter if it actually does. He said that the same-sex marriage ban furthers the state’s interest in encouraging couples of the opposite sex to have children.

“It is rational to believe that opposite-sex marriages will generate new offspring to a greater extent than same-sex marriages will,” he wrote.

He said the state also wants to keep individuals from having kids out of wedlock, which he also believes a gay marriage ban will further.

As ThinkProgress notes, Abbott then argues that it does not matter how the law actually impacts children in the state.

“It does not matter under rational-basis review whether same-sex marriage will produce societal benefits,” he wrote in response to the argument that the children of gay couples would benefit from same-sex marriage.

He claims that it only matters if the law furthers the specified state interests of encouraging people to produce offspring and preventing people from having children out of wedlock.