"Marriage... serves the predominant role of connecting children to their parents;

So where does this leave the children of unmarried couples? Are we now to revert to the language of illegitimacy for these children?

"After all, historically, marriage has always served the public purpose of attaching mothers and fathers to one another and to their children;"

Historically, one of the reasons for marriage was to ensure (hopefully) who fathers the children. However, there are many instances in which the presumed father is found not to be the biological father. Marriage does not guarantee parentage, it is only hoped that it will. The only guarantee of parentage is the love and fidelity of the partners, so love does indeed appear to be more important than anything else.

Heterosexual intercourse does not always consist of the man penetrating the woman's vagina with his penis. Without being too specific, there are many different ways in which heterosexual couples make love, some that are similar and even the same as the ways in which homosexual couples make love.

Sometimes some heterosexual couples make love in exactly the same ways homosexual couples make love, and there will be no baby as a consequence. In those instances, what is the difference between the lovemaking?

Once again. love wins the argument. Love tends to do this. Love does tend to disregard barriers and man made boundaries. It isn't that it "conquers." It just ends up mattering more than biological determinism.

>> Marriage is a public good. It serves the predominant role
>> of connecting children to their parents

The 2001 Census revealed that 20% of lesbian couples and 5% of male homosexual couples are raising children http://www.hreoc.gov.au/human_rights/samesex/report/Ch_5.html If, for argument's sake, we accept for a minute that the predominant role of marriage is "connecting children to their parents", then denying the public good of marriage to the children of lesbians and gays is cruel and arbitrary.

>> It is this equal right of all children, to the love of one’s
>> mother and father, which has been so consistently ignored in
>> the discourse about “all conquering love”.

The fact is that children don't have a right "to the love of one's mother and father," and no power can grant it. However children born in this country do have a right to be treated equally by the state and by their fellow-citizens.

If marriage is all about the children, then it should be about all the children, and not just the children of heterosexuals.

Excellent piece Amy. Gay marriage leftists always discriminate; they’re just asking us to discriminate against tradition, or what works for children. We are all just social experiments to many elitists, I guess.

"Marriage is a public good. It serves the predominant role of connecting children to their parents"
-Amy Vierboom

No, it doesn't. Possession of a marriage certificate will not automatically lead to increased amounts quality time 'twixt child and offspring; it will not lead to disinterested parents becoming more involved in their children's lives; it will not lead to improved communication and understanding 'twixt generations; it will, in short, do absolutely bugger all to connect children to their parents.

Consider this plausible example: on one hand, we have a pair of unemployed hippies living in sin, with a small child. On the other, we have a pair of workaholic corporate executives, who are happily married with a small child. The hippies are poor, but time-rich: every day is a holiday when you're on the dole. They spend a great deal of time with their child, and have a very close bond. The executive couple are always at work, even when they're home. Child-rearing is outsourced to day-care and nannies, and consequently they have a poorer relationship with their child then the unwed couple. The unmarried couple are better connected to their child then the married ones. So maybe we should regard marriage as a public bad, and consider living in sin to be the public good.

Or perhaps the anti-SSM crowd could stop grasping at straws, and just admit that marriage is irrelevant to the relationship 'twixt parent and child.

The author made this blooper at the start of her essay which implies that she has made a thorough-going comprehensive study of this topic.

"for thousands of years laws recognizing marriage"

Some kind of evidence please?

Meanwhile this reference points out how the concept and form of "families" changed over the centuries.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/encounter/stories/2010/3029756.htm

Plus the dreadfully dark truth about "happy" families.

http://www.psychohistory.com

"they’re just asking us to discriminate against tradition"
-History Buff

It used to be traditional to keep black people as slaves. Tradition alone is an appallingly stupid reason for doing anything.

"or what works for children"
-History Buff

Nobody is asking you to discriminate against 'what works for children', which in this context I take as a strange euphemism for heterosexual marriage (very strange, since Blind Freddy can see that heterosexual marriage often doesn't work for children). They're asking you to cease & desist from unfairly discriminating against gay marriage. This is an entirely different matter to discriminating against heterosexual marriage.