Great article, and so obviously the rational position on this topic.

But it won't change anything, activists will not rest until the marriage act is changed, and in a society where the majority no longer believes in anything, there will be no stopping those who want to see the very concept of family revolutionised.

Peter,
In computer programming(a thing I spend a lot of time doing) there are variables nominated as "user defined". This is a value that is available for the programmer to use at anytime, for his or her own use to facilitate a function.
Marriage is "user defined". It always has been and still is. It is not an "institution given by God" but can be viewed as such if that is what you wish. In the past it has been used for economic, political and a variety of other uses. Like all man-made institutions it changes and develops, like language.
Marriage has meaning (like life in general) because you give it meaning. If you wish to view marriage constrained by the shackles of your religion and prejudice then fine. But please don't make everybody suffer under your definitions. We have suffered enough.

As was pointed out earlier, without a strong opposition to other forms of "sterile" marriage the arguments against same sex marriage on that basis look like a guise to disguise other motives for opposition.

Perhaps Sells or one his supporters can point to the article where Sells has opposed marriage for those unable to reproduce without third party assistance (or where such reproduction could result in a high risk of birth defects). If Sells is consistant then marriage for anyone past their early 40's is starting to look a bit dubious. Clearly out for anyone who can't reproduce in the usual manner.

I suspect that the total number of marriages that are started where the parties involved were never able to produce children or never intended to would far outweigh the likely number of same sex marriages which occur.

I'd rather the government get out of the business or registering and regulating relationships, while the government is in that business it should not discriminate between consenting adult humans.

R0bert

The trouble with this Ontological argument, an appeal to abandon the notion of "equality" based on biological realities is that theologues have, in general, many misconceptions about what the biological realities are.

It's like saying "The Earth is Flat, therefore...". Now when walking to the corner shop, or even driving around a city, a "Flat Earth" model works pretty well. Similarly, dividing up humanity into male and female works pretty well. But both models, a binary sex division, and a flat earth, don't correspond with reality except as an approximation.

1 in 60 humans are Intersex, born with bodies neither wholly stereotypically male nor female. 1 in 300 men for example don't have the usual 46,XY chromosomes, and some women do.

The terms "men" and "women" are social constructs, the definitions change from place to place and time to time. The definitions are based on objective realities, but the conclusions differ. The same facts lead to one result in one place, the opposite in another.

From Littleton vs Prange:

"Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male."

I also have noticed that whenever someone tries to make a "non theological" argument against gay marriage it almost inevitably comes from a religious author.

I'm fairly sure the author of this article doesn't know much about biology. That apart from those humans whose sex anatomy is ambiguous (but at least stable) that there are a number of different medical syndromes that can cause a "natural sex change". 5-alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5ARD), 17-beta-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17BHSD) and so on.

See for example : http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

I know of only one case where someone who was a biological father managed to become pregnant (due to a botched hernia surgery causing self-fertilisation), but it only takes one counter-example to disprove this Universal Verity that's being appealed to as a basis for over-ruling common humanity.

It's one thing to say "I'm sorry, I know it's cruel, but facts are facts" when they really are facts. Another to say the same thing on the basis of scientific ignorance and misconception, and "facts" which just are not so, but mere approximations to a more complex reality.