@Philo, you could say the same of the children of heterosexual parents who are adopted at birth, children created from donor sperm and children where a parent is unknown or leaves.

I was adopted as a child and met my natural family as an adult. I can assure you that the bond between myself and my adopted parents and brother is much stronger than anything I will ever have with my natural parents or siblings. Biology does not make someone a good parent.

Children and marriage are not synonymous. Heterosexual couples marry without ever having children, and have children without ever getting married. Hetersexuals with children remarry and successfully create new families where one parent is not the biological parent.

The fact is that gay parents can and do have children, whether they are married or not. The real question is - do we afford these children of gay parents the rights and protections of marriage? Or do we deny it to them due to the opinion of some that these children should never have been born? Let's deal with reality and grant the protections to these families that marriage will provide.

@FreeThinker states that same sex marriage can never be marriage because "A union of two people of the same gender has no potential to create anything greater than themselves, from within the union."

This is clearly irrelevant because:

A union of two people of the opposite gender aged over 60 years old has no potential to create anything greater than themselves, from within the union. Yet they are permitted to marry, and we recognise it as marriage.

A union of two people of the opposite gender where the woman has had a hysterectomy has no potential to create anything greater than themselves, from within the union. Yet they are permitted to marry, and we recognise it as marriage.

A union of two people of the opposite gender who are unable to have sex due to accident or injury has no potential to create anything greater than themselves, from within the union. Yet they are permitted to marry, and we recognise it as marriage.

Your argument is illogical.

Marriage is a word meaning a union or contract between a man and a woman. Just like brass is a combination of copper and zinc.

If homosexual couples want a legally binding union, thats fine but, come up with a word/s for that union.

Don't try to pinch a word that is already in use and all know the meaning of.

Heres a suggestion. What about Malunion and Femalunion?

Any other suggestions?

GlendaSinging,
The parents of orphaned children have not been deliberatly placed as orphans as a optium choice. Other cases are mere exceptions such as infertility or interferrence of the natural.

Quoting exceptions does not establish normality. One male parent in a childs life is not normal parenting. A mother who has carried a child for nine months and given birth, is very calous to give her child up at birth for two men to raise. Is this the society we desire? The communists tried this 60 years ago - a total failure. Children need a mothers breast love, especially infant boys.

I beeleve dat we shuld be aalowwed to mary our cussin

Author seems to be having a bet either way, on one hand saying that it is the State's responsibility to regulate marriage, but on the other saying that legal recognition is not the same as moral approval.

He has given no reason why the State should be in the business of regulating private sexual relationships in the first place.

Neither Church nor State ever claimed that marriage is constituted by the act of the Church or State - both register for their own purposes marriage constituted by the commitment of the parties.

So it is not true that it is the State's responsibility to regulate marriage or private sexual relationships. The only reason the issue of gay "marriage" arises is because of the gay rights political movement. If instead of that, there had been in recent decades a political movement for polygamy, or child sex, or any other form of human sexuality, then all the same arguments would apply for all the same reasons.

The fact is, State involvement can only ever provoke conflict over who is in and who is out, the decision on which can never be anything but arbitrary. Indeed, there was no more reason for State registration of marriage than there is now for State registration of gay marriage.

Until the advocates of gay marriage acknowledge the equal right of polygamists to State recognition for all the same reasons, the rest of us can be excused for regarding their protestations as so much self-interested and unprincipled nonsense.

The only principled solution is to abolish government regulation of sexual relationships, including:
- the Marriage Act
- the Property Relationships Act
- the Family Provision Act
- the regulation of legitimacy.