To me, the key question is what do homosexual couples want out of gaining access to civil marriage?
I believe the answers to be the following:

* Automatic recognition of their 'next of kin' status for the purposes of property, inheritance, and medical incapacitation of their partner. Think about it - a person married for five minutes has more 'next of kin' influence at the bedside of a person in a coma than a person who has been in a defacto relationship for years.

* Public recognition and acceptance of their relationships, a 'life marker'. Think about the photos people have of their children around the house. They are often photos of when they were little, when they graduated high school and/or uni, and their wedding. Weddings mark when people publicly accept and rejoice in the happiness of another couple. How should the parents, family and friends of a person who happens to be homosexual be not allowed to celebrate the committment and happiness of a couple?

I simply do not see how giving access to this 'next of kin' status and a ceremony, to two adult and consenting members of society, can possibly in any way devalue the relationship between other adult and consenting members of society.

On the balance of probablities, it seems to me that we would be increasing the happiness of our soceity by allowing people to celebrate their love in public.

As I've stated previously,let the Gays have their union recognised by the state but not the same as the normal union of husband and wife known as marriage.The traditional marriage of man and woman is still the best way to raise children even with all our human foibles.

I don't believe that all homosexuals are inherantly born that way.For some it is a lifestyle choice.Paedophiles are created by the perversions of other paedophiles and this is not a lifestyle choice,but more about sexual imprinting on adolesence before they have a chance to come to terms with the complexities of their own emotions.We can change the sexual orientation of an individual at an early age and single sex couples do not on average, give a balanced view of the world.

How did we ever define opposite sex marriage? Science didnt define it, Christianity did. So it makes no sense to argue marriage on the basis of the ability to procreate. The ability to create life is irrelevant to recognition of love in society. So are we to continue to define law on the basis of Christianity? No! There was a humane convention that said people should have rights no matter what their religious beliefs are. So there are civil unions. And a civil union should permit all equality, i would think.
one person said that children brought up in traditional opposite sex marriages are less balanced parents than same-sex partners, this is quite an incorrect generalisation, where's the evidence? Maybe the guy brought up with two dads to live a healthy normal life had better balanced parents than the conventional opposite-sex parents who orphaned the guy next to him, but thats be an assumption too.
And then should we argue polygamous marriages to be recognised in society? Well if we accept that equality is just that equality then yes we should, as long as these acts dont explicitly harm society why not.
But then again equality is a concept for an ideal world