Cite as: 523 U. S. 420 (1998)
Breyer, J., dissenting
States, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, pp. 17-18 (Comm. Print submitted to House Comm. on Immigration and Naturalization, 1939); Nationality Act of 1940, § 205, 54 Stat. 1139.
Nor is there need for the gender-based discrimination at issue here, for, were Congress truly interested in achieving the goals Justice Stevens posits in the way Justice Stevens suggests, it could simply substitute a requirement of knowledge of birth for the present subsection (a)(4); or it could distinguish between Caretaker and Noncaretaker Parents, rather than between men and women. A statute that does not do so, but instead relies upon gender-based distinctions, appears rational only, as I have said, supra, at 482-484, if one accepts the legitimacy of gender-based generalizations that, for example, would equate gender and caretaking— generalizations of a kind that this Court has previously found constitutionally impermissible. See, e. g., Virginia, 518 U. S., at 542, 546 (striking down men-only admissions policy at Virginia Military Institute even assuming that "most women would not choose VMI's adversative method"); J. E. B., 511 U. S., at 139, n. 11 (invalidating gender-based peremptory challenges "[e]ven if a measure of truth can be found in some of the gender stereotypes used to justify" them); Craig, 429 U. S., at 201 (invalidating Oklahoma law that established different drinking ages for men and women, although the evidence supporting the age differential was "not trivial in a statistical sense"); Wiesenfeld, 420 U. S., at 645 (holding unconstitutional statutory classification giving to widowed mothers benefits not available to widowed fathers even though "the notion that men are more likely than women to be the primary supporters of their spouses and children is not entirely without empirical support"). Although Justice Stevens cites Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U. S. 248 (1983), for support, ante, at 441, that case was decided before the DNA advances described earlier.
For similar reasons, subsection (3) denies Charlie Miller "equal protection" of the laws. That subsection requires an
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