By the same token MAREELORRAINE, legislating for gay marriage will not affect any heterosexual marriages either!

AGIR, I doubt feminism has much interest in the subject of male homosexual marriages, do you?

My personal opinion is that many of the people who oppose gay marriage are trying desperately to hold on to some of the last remnants of what they see as a religious union of a man and woman.

These days however, there are far more people who don't get married in churches anyway, so I don't see the problem really.

the acceptance of 'gay' marriage will never happen with people who are interested in truth. No matter how many people the likes of Jennifer are able to brainwash nature itself shows us how unhealthy sodomy is. Yes nice people commit sodomy but nice people also fiddle with kids. This is not about being 'nice' people or not. This is about giving children a fair go rather than brainwashing them with the 'gay' agenda. As for lecturing Bill on truth I suggest Jennifer stop lecturing us on her perceived truth. She seems clueless. The idea that it is all about 'love' is a lot of baloney. Some men claim to 'love' every women in a skirt. The desperation of acceptance of an abhorrent lifestyle is written all over this article. We are happy to discriminate against polygamist and we should be happy to discriminate against people choosing this lifestyle also.

To address this topic, we really need to analyse why marriage
evolved as a cultural institution, in the first place.

Pairbonding in nature is common, amongst species where lots of
resources are required, to raise the offspring. Untold women have
told me, that they chose their husband as he was seen to be a
good and reliable provider. Fair enough, feeding a couple of kids
for 20 years or so, takes some doing.

Fair enough, women seek some certainty about their future and that
of their offspring, males seek some certainty in terms of sexual
exclusivity, for in evolutionary terms, there is not much point in
feeding somebody elses kids.

But our modern laws have overriden all this. Create some kids and
you will pay for 20 years. Live with somebody for a couple of years
and they can run riot with your assets or as a judge decides. The
judge will nearly invariably favour women with children and as of
the latest, consider the lifestyle that a female has become accustomed
to, even if she was on the streets before the relationship.

So marriage has become little but a quaint cultural institution for
those who want to express their commitment at the time. In legal
terms, there is little difference to shacking up with somebody.
Its also become quite a business for those who plan it all carefully
and with the intention of making a quid out of the whole thing.

That said, marriage has lost the intent it used to have. Today its
simply a cultural ceremony expressing intent and commitment at the time. If we change our minds later, so be it.

Legally, people are no more prodected then those shacking up together.
Given that today its little more then a commitment ceremony to make
people feel good, why should it matter what their gender is?

This article reads like something I would written 8-10 years ago believing myself back then a passionate defender of 'love' and 'equality' against narrow minded bigotry. But I was a just a cipher of advanced liberalism - a world view so taken for granted few are aware of it let alone in a position to critique it.

The author hasn't bothered to find out what norms characterise gay couplings. She would have found, non-monogamy, little desire for children, and short-term and crucially – an unwillingness to get married! The opposite of heterosexual norms. Sensible people understand marriage needs renewal not redefinition and abolition.

Marriage, in these fatally individualistic times, is thought to be merely chosen for purposes of individualistic self fulfillment and that erotic love is its essence. The author can't see what a degraded and evacuated notion this is of marriage. She hasn't thought to find out just what it is before reflexively mouthing the pieties of the politically correct.

There is all the difference in the world between the existence of a standard and the ordering of society to meet that standard (however poorly) and its redefinition and destruction.

The author needs to imagine the effects of accommodating gay norms:
-marriage no longer expected (gays very rarely want to marry),
-children no longer natural fruit (gay coupling is by nature sterile)
-no longer life long and binding (typical of gays);

legaling requiring us to be silent about norms we have inherited (even though we fail at them) because they don’t typify gay couplings (and would discriminate against them!) would mean young boys and girls and future generations would have a society ordered towards their marriage stolen from them. Society would lack the institution most necessary for generating citizens capable of ordered liberty: families with parent biological parents.

How ‘equal’ is all this for the majority? For those that follow?

Our task is marriage renewal. We are expected to be just stewards of an institution we inherited and are duty bound not to succumb to the silliest and most damaging aspects of an individualistic age.

I'm quite suspicious of claims of "a world view so taken for granted few are aware of it let alone in a position to critique it."

I really do doubt that there are as many idiots in the world as this claim seems to assume.

As I mentioned in the article, there are arguments against the institution of marriage, and some of them are very good ones.

However, these arguments are entirely separate from the arguments that seek to exclude specific groups from inclusion in the Marriage Act. The two issues are frequently and wrongly conflated.

Whether or not marriage is the best way for human beings to conduct a loving life together, I don't know, and I suspect nobody else does either at this stage.

This does not mean that those who choose this path are either self absorbed individualists, or staggering about in an erotic haze, robbed of their ability to reason. Though of course there are undoubtedly people who fit these descriptions who are married.

No matter what, my point still stands. Whatever the current state of marriage, however much it needs attention and renewal, this is solely the responsibility of heterosexuals. To claim that gay and lesbian marriages will somehow contaminate the institution is bizarre

"Whether or not all homosexuals have a different concept of marriage from “most of us” has not been determined. But whether they do or not is actually quite irrelevant in terms of the effects of their concepts on heterosexual marriage"

Do all heterosexua's have the same concept of marriage. I suggest that concept, even among heterosexuals has varied and changed over the centuries, where once maaraige was seen by Kings and the male wealthy as a easy way of protecting their wealth.