Leigh, homosexuality is not a choice for most homosexuals - it is probably an innate feeling or desire in most.

Given the variations in heterosexual practices these days, anatomy is probably not an issue.

Whatever this article sets out to achieve it loses with its old hat undergraduate lesbian radical feminist view of marriage, men and society. The author is betwixt and between: she dumps on marriage, but at the same time she sees it as something that is worthwhile to gays, something they might aspire to. Meanwhile she also hopes that marriage will fail as an institution.

If marriage is so awful shouldn't it be done without rather than force it onto others through State intervention? If she wants to demolish marriage, go ahead but be honest about it and come up with alternatives.

Many women want to marry and many women want to have children. Bettina Arndt was trying to communicate some of the hard-won experience of others for the benefit of that group.

It can always be expected that those who see a gender divide will always disagree with Bettina Arndt and as usual they put their own spin on what they say she writes. What about some large slabs of quotes if another author's work is to be the mainstay of an article that takes issue with the first, in this case Arndt? After all, if the meanings are in fact there and there is often doubt that is the case, why not let the readers make up their own minds?

I don't see this article as really being about gay marriage at all. Rather, it seems to be about dumping on the old foes of radical feminism, unrealistic and imaginary though they are. What this article is also about is dumping on the informed choices that many women make. The happiness of the substantial majority of women who are happily managing their families and children must be hard for the jealous to bear. Will the author make them feel guilty for their choices and happiness? Don't think so!

Cornflower,

I would agree. I would also like to ask what alternatives are being put forward by academics that denigrate heterosexual marriage?

Particularly in veiw of the increasing amount of data now available for the benifits of heterosexual marriage.

For example:-

"Dr. Waite also traced better health to marriage. Divorced men, her study showed, had twice the rate of alcohol abuse that married men had, and almost as many indulged in other "risk taking" behavior. Divorced women showed similar patterns, though at lower rates.

"Marriage may provide individuals with a sense of meaning in their lives," Dr. Waite said, "and a sense of obligation to others, inhibiting risky behaviors and encouraging healthy ones."

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/10/us/studies-find-big-benefits-in-marriage.html

The author is an academic that offers no supporting data for her statements. This is the opposite to what science and education are supposed to be for.

Next academics will be saying 1 + 1 = 11

Why not, (when an academic does not have to give any supporting evidence for what they say).

Is this article arguing that allowing homosexuals to marry makes marriage more beneficial for heterosexual women.

If so, I fail to see the connection. I shared a communal house for some time as a student and arguments about cleaning toilets or sharing responsibility were mixed between the genders. We generally muddled through working out a fair deal based on jobs we all preferred or disliked the least.

There may be some women out there holding down a job and still doing most of the household duties but perhaps some men are also in the same position.

If you take gender out of the equation, and you can these days because we are closer to equality than we have ever been, it is really up to the partners involved whether gay or not, to work out what works best.

"Which isn't to say marriage should no longer be an option. Rather, that it must be a choice for everyone, and not an ultimatum via its continued confirmation as the relationship pinnacle - for only a husband and his wife."

I think the author might be pushing for options that are already won. Many people opting to live together without the official sanction of marriage. Sanctioning gay marriage (which I support) won't improve or add anything new to this evolving phenomenon.

I cannot believe how 1950's this author thinks the world is.

Seems like there have been so many singlet wearing University feminists who've made good mileage and money out of this old saw,the author doesn't realise time has passed and this stuff is like the mumblings and grumblings of an old 1940's Communist who still believes the revolution is coming.

An anti-female plot is seen at every turn thus proving one's firmly held beliefs over and again.

Maybe we can lock them together in a University somewhere and let them bore each other to death and then blame it on the patriarchal capitalist military industrial complex.

I found the article a little confusing. I'm not actually sure what she was trying to say.

Gay marriage has nothing to do with heterosexual marriage or heterosexual women. The countries where Gay marriage is legal have not suffered catastrophes or mass homosexual recruitments, as was feared by some narrow-minded citizens.

Gay marriage will not affect any heterosexual marriage, and it should be allowed in a forward thinking country like Australia.
If anyone is disgusted by the thought of Gay marriage, then they can choose not to marry people of the same gender as themselves!

It is no one else's business really.