Yeah, but when it shows something as "normal" in a place where it's illegal and folks are fighting hard to make it legal, then it is *hiding* the fact that things need to change.

Doing the story and having the couple have all sorts of trouble because the local authorities won't recognize the marriage (it'd have to have been out of state) and the adoption (also have to have been out of state, which breaks some parts of the plot they used) would show that change is needed, badly.

The NCIS folks, being federal would recognize the marriage and adoption, but they'd have to fight the locals. Maybe have some locals sympathetic and others doing their best to cause trouble.

*That* would have been a powerful story.

ETA: If we had the *actual* legal climate, NCIS could have recovered the baby only to have the state agency in charge of child welfare take it away from the couple, because the adoption isn't recognized in Loiusiana. (and yes, that sort of stuff *happens* to gay couples).

Wouldn't *that* be a note to end on.

What they had was just one where they changed a wife to a husband. Same old, same old, just with that one change.