In Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1979), the mother and father had lived together for five years. During that time they held themselves out as husband and wife and had two children. The father's name was placed on the children's birth certificates. When the parties separated, one child was two-and-one-half years old and the other was four. After the father moved out, he maintained consistent contact with the children and contributed to their support. The Supreme Court found the father's relationship with his children to be constitutionally protected and held that he retained the right to veto their adoption by withholding his consent. The father in Caban had legal and physical custody of his children at one time and had supported them. (441 US at 382.) The Court held that New York's statute (Domestic Relations Law 111), denying all unwed fathers the right to veto an adoption even when the father has had a substantial relationship with his children, violated the Equal Protection Clause because it made a distinction between the rights of unmarried fathers and the rights of unmarried mothers which did not substantially relate to an important government interest. (Id. at 382.) The Court reasoned that while New York's goal of promoting timely adoption of children born out of wedlock in order to give them a stable two-parent home is important, the means chosen by the Legislature did not reasonably further those ends. (Id. at 391.) Thus, the Court held that Domestic Relations Law 111 was an example of an "`overbroad generalization'" in gender-based classification. (Id. at 394.) The Court did not address appellant's additional argument concerning the statute's differential treatment of married and unmarried fathers. (Id. at 394 n 16.) In Caban, the Court held that while the government interest of promoting adoptive homes for children born out of wedlock is important, the state may not achieve that interest by denying a natural father's right to veto the child's adoption simply based on the father's gender. (Id. at 391.) The Court nevertheless emphasized that "in those cases where the father never has come forward to participate in the rearing of his child, nothing in the Equal Protection Clause precludes the state from withholding from him the privilege of vetoing the adoption of that child." (Id. at 392.)