Yes, it's more difficult than you think, Dave

Norm

Where does 'Love' come into it Melanie ? and I don't mean sex. I didn't see it mentioned at all yet it is the catalyst to any long term relationship.

dexter mayhem

Love and marriage, love and marriage
go together like a fish and a bicycle

denverthen

"Blairism-Lite"

Ouch!

Frank P

Norm

Love is subjective and mostly indefinable; it means so many different things and the word is multi-functional, anyway. Some people profess to love their dog or cat. Others love their car.

In this context do you mean infatuation, or perhaps lust - the reason that so many couples get spliced and later live to regret it. Or do you mean the mutual respect and joint responsibility that leads to trust, loyalty, a family, an extended family and then lifelong devotion through thick and thin - which Melanie has so eloquently described in her post? Slippery old word - leerve. Melanie has fleshed it out into something substantial.

Mind you - a bit of infatuation and lust ain't bad for starters if you can follow through with the goods and mutual determination to make a marriage succeed. By he way, sex is a dubious word these days too. It apparently has to be qualified and sub-divided into various permutations which actually have nothing to do with sex at all; and, it would seem, in most cases amounts to mutual - perhaps even coincidental - onanism. Quite often orgiastic too, not to mention 'acceptably' (so some would have it) depraved.

Cue the music,

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking ..."

http://www.metrolyrics.com/anything-goes-lyrics-frank-sinatra.html

I'll bet many a life now being lived was conceived to the dulcet tones of F Sinatra directing the rhythm of the rumpy-pumpy. And what a bad bastard he was!

Relugus

How people choose to live there lives and who they fall in love with is entirely a matter for them.

It is not the business of government. What this illustrates is Cameron's authoritarianism and smug upper class world view.

What a naive twit.

zalmi

Bravo! First rate! This needs to appear in print.

Jordynne Olivia Lobo

To deny full civil rights to homosexuals, to our citizen fellows, is, at its heart, to compel them to wear the pink triangle: it is to stigmatize; there is no reforming it.

Wendy

Relugus: what it also shows is Cameron's inability to say anything meaningful. It's obvious that in his absurd voyage across egg-shells, he'd rather trot out bland PC nonsense than risk saying anything that might smack of conservatism. We need a proper leader who's not afraid of speaking the truth.

WorcesterMan

Me and my dog are in a committed relationship - can I have a tax break please?

Oh, and I'm pretty close to my sister-in-law - can I have one for that as well?

Not to mention my commitment to my parents, sisters, rugby club...etc.

In fact - why don't we all just slithe around in a big sweaty lump like earth worms Cameron?

After all - we are surely heading in that direction.

Peter from Maidstone

Jordynne Olivia Lobo, homosexuals already have full civil rights. What they cannot have is marriage, since marriage is by universal definition the union of a man and a woman as Melanie has described.

Now if you want to provide property rights etc for people who are in other sorts of relationships then that might be argued for. But why just two men? Why not two spinsters, or three spinsters? Or a father and son?

Homosexuals cannot be married, in the same way that a man cannot become a mother. There are no civil disabilities on homosexuals at all, and to pretend there are is disingenuous.

LES SHUELL

Would you buy a used car from this man?

michael

'for better or for worse'...

support the vow!..

Its family super glue.

unlike a g w , it WORKS... fact.

juliana casboult

This is scary Melanie.I think your David Cameron is a plant just like Malcolm Turnbull in Australia.You should look into his shares in carbon trading or the like?

C O JONES

Norm,

"Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another."
H. L. Mencken.

I don't know what Henry would have made of our coffeehouse 'heroines.' Some of whom differ quite fundamentally from other women!

Ian C

This is the classic 'liberal minded' politician's Waterloo. He wants to shore up broken elements of society (quite right). Q. How to do that? A. Evidence apparently is that removing erstwhile (small) tax incentives for marriage have damaged it badly. In the meantime 'anything goes' has become formalised into 'liberal society' and the genie is out, creating much confusion in society's mind as described by Melanie in putting Cameron straight.

The only way to get this one back in the bottle is through education standards and through that, much wider access to teachings of morality, ethics and religions. This should put the school back at the active heart of communities so that confidence in moral beacons in society's midst is re-inserted where once the church was.

Vouchers for all schools and tax releif for parental additional fees for education will slowly (a generation plus)will bring back the education standards needed that can be the base from which to promote a more balanced, non-hypocritical (as the old forms had become)'norms' for societal standards and behaviour.

In the meantime there will be much money and political capital wasted trying to devise an acceptable way to deliver tax benefits to marriage or 'commitment'.

Ray

Marriage should mean what it has always meant: one man, one woman, 'till death us do part'.

Of course, in reality human beings are fallible and marriage will sometimes have to be dissolved - though not without the financial penalty that accrues to dissolving any legally-binding contract.

In turn, civil partnerships should be extended so that anyone who wants to protect a shared inheritance they have worked towards (whether they be two homosexual partners or two spinster sisters who have spent all their lives together) can apply for one so long as they can prove that they have lived together continuously for at least ten years. Likewise, dissolution of a civil partnership once entered into will incur similar financial penalties to a marital diivorce.

That way the true meaning of marriage is enshrined in law, whilst a civil partnership will secure similar rights but need no longer be considered an exclusively 'gay' thing.

Molotov

"So can we now look forward to a Cameroon government legalising polygamy and polyandry? Or while they’re in the mood how about legalising incest, to acknowledge the ‘commitment’ of the relatives involved in such relationships"

O they won't, they're too spineless to do anything like that. They'll wait for Labour to do it then they'll accept and reinforce it on the basis that 'society has moved on'.

Tiberius

You were not Cameron's target audience with that speech, Melanie. It was directed via the media at a few million people who have the vote and have probably no more than five minutes a day to absorb the day's political events, and who would not have the capability to dissect what he said as you have done.

I have no doubt that Cameron's shorthand is not an admission that he believes marriage is a term applicable to any relationship other than that between a man and a woman. I'm also sure that you're aware of his Anglican background.

We may not want politics to be sordid or simplistic but mostly it is, unfortunately. And the game would not be won by trying to employ a different, even intellectually superior, set of rules.

Dixon

Im in love with myself. Give me a tax-break too!

Dixon

"If ‘commitment’ really is what marriage is all about, then why stop at the ‘commitment’ of only one individual to another? For on this basis, there can be no objection at all to polygamy or polyandry, since people given to such practices can and doubtless will plausibly argue that they are equally committed to their multiple husbands and wives."

Well, you know that the benefit system already recognises polygamy and awards extra allowances to Muslims with multiple wives ( as long as they were married abroad ):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512043/Muslim-husbands-wife-extra-benefits-ministers-recognise-polygamy.html#ixzz0b0g3CsUu

Ed Benson

You seem to be arguing that marriage has to be male-female because it's all about having children. But what about heterosexual couples who are beyond child-bearing age, or physically incapable of having children, or who simply choose not to? Should they be allowed to get married?

By your argument, the answer would be no, which would be pretty outrageous. If the answer's yes, then it negates the whole argument about marriage being about children. In which case, why the discrimination against homosexuals?

Rebel Saint

Wow! What a lot of ignorant comments. It shows just how far we've allowed marriage to be diminished and how rampant hedonistic individualism has become.

The reason marriage should be given a 'tax break' is because it is no longer 2 individuals but one 'unit' - "one flesh" as was the tradition that served us very effectively for millennia.

People seem to think that you marry because you are 'in love'. On that basis there is absolutely no reason to discriminate against anybody. Why indeed should we limit such "loving, committed relationships" to just one person, or to people of the opposite sex, or to people outside of kin, or even to people at all? If the argument is because of sexual nature of such relationships, then surely that discriminates against celibate relationships.

Yes, marriage is about love. Yes, it is about commitment. But it is not primarily about the love & commitment to each other but to the offspring that such love & commitment might produce.

It is children who need the security, the love & the commitment that comes from a public, legally binding declaration.

Sadly raising children now plays second fiddle to the pursuit of wealth & personal happiness.

Dixon

"Sexual restraint and the monogamy which enshrined and protected it were once considered a hallmark of civilisation and progress. It was primitive societies for which sex was merely a carnal and entirely non-judgmental procedure devoid of any spiritual, moral or socially progressive dimension. That is a key reason why such societies were very often marked by the oppression of women, cruelty and savagery and remained backward or even died out altogether."

Islam is the most sexually restraining religion ever, yet it is characterised by polygamy and is also the most repressive of women. It has also lasted 1500 years and remains very backward. On all five counts, this contradicts your above assertion.

Neil Craig

I thought your "commitment to ... commitment" line had deleted some typical meaningless platitude in between but no - he actually said that exact phrase.

Maxine

I don't think tax breaks will make the slightest difference. It's the cost of divorce and the division of that assets that scares so men off of marriage. We hear of so many women taking their men to the cleaners if they slip up... maybe the problem is because the assets still go in a women's favour irrespective of which party is a t fault.

raymond

We are just so ignorant , and badly taught in this country regarding marriage ! We are so shallow, wanting our collective cakes and eat them ! And this is just within much of the christian church whose members should know better ! This is a brilliant article Melanie ! And if only your critics could really read, and inwardly digest your arguments, we could start to make progress ! trouble is, the shallow thinkers will just stay,well, shallow !

London Calling

Good Post Melanie,I agree…

I think David Cameron should avoid social grooming and practise the Christian value of leading by example in Government first. Wealth need not have been mentioned by David to express chances children have by the warmth of parenting, when it is a known fact that privilege creates more chances for a child than love.

Home, Community, Society and government are the four elements that need a renewal in direction and reconstruction. Not enforced, but discussed, debated and acted upon to improve all our lives. Politics just gets in the way…:)

Augustus

What fun! Putting words to the picture above.

"Oh dear! I've just made a commitment to confuse marriage with zoological mating patterns.
But never mind, that should convince a few more floating voters."

Andre

Maybe this sounds a bit off but isn't Mrs Cameron a peach? You'd think Dave would be rather more robust in defense of marriage when he has learnt at first hand what a rewarding institution it is. Play it again Sam...

London Calling

What fun! Putting words to the picture above…

I agree Augustus.

Cameron’s Mantra…

“I must think before I speak, I must think before I speak”

“Does my breath really smell of Garlic?”

“My left hand doesn’t know what my right hands doing”

“Speak No Evil”

:)

digbydolben

But what about heterosexual couples who are beyond child-bearing age, or physically incapable of having children, or who simply choose not to? Should they be allowed to get married?

Ed Benson, we Americans are gradually coming to the conclusion (one that Melanie apparently won't endorse) that such folks should, indeed, be allowed to marry, but that they should get exactly the same treatment under the tax code as single people, except for those with financial dependents.

This gets government out of the marriage business (where it had no business ever belonging), allows for "gay marriage" (but does not force religions to sanctify it)and does, indeed, allow two cohabiting spinsters or a mutually dependent brother and sister to protect the financial status of their "union." America's Constitution is actually more "libertarian" in spirit than European "conservatives" are prepared to be.

Frank P

The title picture: seems to have heeded Norman Tebbits criticism about not wearing a tie; then forgotten his handkerchief!

The Other David

I think commitment (of the involuntary sort) would be a jolly good thing in Mr. Cameron's case.

Rob

"It was primitive societies for which sex was merely a carnal and entirely non-judgmental procedure devoid of any spiritual, moral or socially progressive dimension"

Spiritual? Yea, can certainly be transcendental with the right person. But moral and socially progressive? It's almost repugnant to link such an intimate act with something as flimsy and shallow as morality and progress.
Morality and progress are human constructs that do not exist in objective reality. Sex, on the other hand, is experience of reality at it's most primal - it's an experience that unites all living things - plants and animals - not just humans. Do you see any morality or progress in nature?

Philo

Augustus,
"...confuse marriage with zoological mating patterns..."

?

david skinner

Marriage is as an objective reality as the birth of a child; when two people become one flesh, they are in effect bring about a new creation.. Even when people divorce it is as impossible to undo that bond as it is to unbirth a child, unless of course one has recourse to murder.

Jesus Christ said in Matt. 19:4., “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’”

Eve was made from the side of Adam and not until he was reunited with his female, complementary half was he complete again. Eve, his feminine complemented him physically, emotionally and mentally. Only eve would fit

Cameron misuses the word “committed,” in the same way that people misuse the word “Christian“. When someone refers to another by saying he is proper Christian, they don’t necessarily mean that he really is a follower and disciple of Jesus, a technical term. They us it as an adjective merely to describe the person’s behaviour- as someone who is nice.

Like wise when Cameron calls someone committed, this merely describes their behaviour but is hardly a technical term for two people becoming one flesh.

It would be ludicrous for a vicar to say to a congregation, “let us welcome this committed couple“, instead of saying, “let us welcome this married couple.“

Whether the couple are committed, caring, faithful is beside the point. They are either married or they are not only when they are physically, emotionally and mentally united . And this is process that takes a life - time to develop. Marriage produces love and not the other way around. It is marriage that supports a couple’s emotional bonding and not the emotional bonding that supports the marriage.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sitting in a Nazi prison cell, once wrote a wedding sermon for a niece who was about to be married. In it he said, “Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God’s holy ordinance, through which he wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status an office.”

But Cameron is behind the times because we have moved on to saying that sexual relationships only have to be consensual, forget the committed stuff. And who is Cameron to lay down the law on how long or short that commitment should last? No all that is necessary is that the participants,aninimal, mineral or vegetable are consenting. Have you heard the women who have respectively married the Berlin Wall and the Eiffel Tower. Cameron it is time to call for the gentelment in white coats.

hadrian

Poor old Dave- as humanistic in his thinking as any leftist. And consequently, his givernment will be at best but marginally better equipped to deal with the tremendous pressures on our culture over the next five years. We are the blind, being led by the blind.
Whilst our politicians drone on about global warning like broken down record players, they preside over a crumbling legal system whose jurisprudence seems dominated by the rights of criminals and the humiliation of victims. Fear of repercussion from gangsters and thugs more often than not outweighs confidence in the State to protect. Our future is grim if this is all we can expect. Our politicians are piddling fools.

Relugus

It does not occur to Melanie's that not everyone is cut out for marriage. Like many on the Right Melanie harks back to a golden age which actually never existed. Miserable men and women trapped in loveless marriages, because both parties felt they had to marry as its "the done thing", abusive, poisonous relationships sustained by financial need to stay married. Battered women, sex-starved men, hen-pecked husbands, bored wives.

The implication in the Tory proposals that people marry for money is itself obscene. If a couple need tax breaks to encourage them to marry they are probably heading for divorce.
Open Marriages are the way forward IMHO; I do not understand why people get so upset at their partner having a fun meaningless shag.

And that "love, honour, and obey" stuff; the first two are fine and dandy but the third is an insult to human dignity. I obey no-one but myself.

There are indeed many social problems, as there have always been and always will be. It is up to families and individuals to deal with these problems. The last thing we need is the government telling people how to live their lives, considering how crap governments are at everything.

Neil Saunders

Yes, it's clear that the family is very important to Mr Cameron, but that it can come in many different forms.

It can be between a man and a woman. It can be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman.

I daresay, now that the Conservatives are determined not to be "nasty", that it can be among three lesbians, a goat and a deaf-mute, one-armed circus midget, provided there is the all-important "commitment".

Yes, the family is certainly safe under the Cameron Conservatives!

Tom the Redhunter

digbydolben wrote "we Americans are gradually coming to the conclusion (one that Melanie apparently won't endorse) that such folks should, indeed, be allowed to marry,"

So that's why gay marrage has failed everytime it's been on the ballot?

Part of the strategy of the gay marriage advocates is to make it look inevitable. We who believe in one-man-one-woman marriage must not fall for the trap. It's not inevitable, and it won't happen.

Mike

Just in case one becomes pregnant,should gay couples be entitled to maternity benefits?

John Thomas

I wonder if Melanie means "polyamory" rather than "polyandry" ("Many men"). The polyamorists (mainly in the US, so far) believe in the legal recognition of their communities of several people (men and women) who all have sex with one another, singly and together (no doubt they're "committed"). And, yes, movements for the legalisation/recognition of "committed" "relationships" of human/animal composition are also in evidence: "zooamory" (as well as pressure groups (increasing in power and visibility) arguing for legalisation of adult/child sex. Incredible? Impossible? So was man/man, woman/woman "marriage" in 1950). Just Google "polyamory", "zooamory", if you don't believe me.

Ed Benson

No one has really answered my point about male-female couples who are too old to conceive or diagnosed infertile. Such couples are every bit as incapable of bearing children as a gay couple, so why should they be allowed to marry? (Following Melanie's definition of marriage as the "union of the two people who come together to create the next generation".)

Bill

'Love' is irrelevant in such considerations. Too many people misunderstand this or use it as a kind of emotional blackmail to bulldozer revolutionary changes, as Labour have done with their 'You cannot legislate for love' slogan promoting their gay reforms.
'Love' is a private matter between individuals. It is not the right of the state to regulate private relationships. The only time the state takes a role in relationships between individuals is when it is fundamentally in the interests of the state to do so. That is, conferring the status of marriage upon a man and a woman exclusively, since this relationship is likely to lead to the procreation of children, and society has a stake in ensuring the most stable upbringing for the next generation. Where procreation is in principle impossible, marriage is irrelevant. Therefore it is wrong that homosexuals should be able to get married. To me this is such an obvious point. Of course, as Melanie says, to say so invites the risk of abuse such as 'homophobia', 'bigotry' and so on.

John Richardson

David Skinner.(9:55pm)

What an excellent contribution, and thank you for the quotation from Bonhoeffer's sermon.

The clash between Christianity and 'secular/liberal/human rights types/progressives' is indeed a clash between madness and sanity.
Between reason and self deceiving verbiage.
I am encouraged, as this is increasingly apparent, even to those with no faith.

I think the 'high water mark' of the homosexual 'rights' movement in the West has been reached and society has 'moved on'.
As evidenced for example, by the total democratic rejection of homosexual marriage in the USA. Also the increasing demographic reality of The Democrat Party due to immigration.

Cameron seems to be tragically 'behind the curve' on this issue. Just like global warming.

The future of the West is religious.
Outside of Hollywood and the television/communications media the revolt against God is coming to an end.
The counter-revolution will not be televised.

Pot Head

All the poe-faced moralizing drivel about marriage on this blog makes be want to get a divorce. Marry if you want, it's none of the bloody states business. And plenty of evidence coming out that Gay parents and lesbians in particular make the best parents.

Baron Pippin II

Ed Benson @ 1.59:

Two things are undeniably true on sex: we procreate by it, and we enjoy it. All sexual couplings other than by heterosexuals fall into the latter category. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?

Edward McLaughlin

Ed Benson

Yes, in the final analysis, after we have had our sum of synaptical jouissance, it pretty much is about making babies.

When you and I shuffle off this wojicallit, we can either leave able bodied operatives on Earth to experience the same, or we can devoid all, bringing our story to an end. We can succumb to death or we can worship it.

The groups you mention: the 'heterosexual couples who are beyond child-bearing age, or physically incapable of having children, or who simply choose not to', along with the various ersatz couplers; are all to be congratulated for their decision to emulate that most crucial of human relationships.

But emulation it is.

Rosemary Blake

Melanie, once again your depth, intellect, understanding and gift for expressing what most of us are thinking is spot-on and inspirational.

digbydolben

Tom the Redhunter, have you seen the statistics regarding which age groups in American overwhelmingly favour gay marriage? And the opponents are winning every year by smaller and smaller margins.

Baron

Ed Benson @ 10.44

The act of conceiving comes second, a young fertile heterosexual couple may decide not to procreate either. What matters in the first instance is the natural ability to procreate, and I’m afraid only heterosexual couples have it. That’s the general rule, those heterosexual couples who are either infertile or want not to are the exception to it. Gays cannot fall in that category because they couldn’t propagate even if they wanted to.

Love, sexual drives and desires e.g. lust are imbedded in our genes; I regard love as an emotional underpinning of sex, which is but a physical desire of men and women to procreate, and/or to enjoy; marriage is a purely man made concept that the society created to institutionalise sex for procreation.

I personally am very much of the view that only those heterosexual couples who procreate should be favoured by the State. A lot. Raising children is, in my little book, the only job that we humans should aim at doing well. We fail, and we are gone.

Leila Lacrosse

Tax breaks for married couples is the easiest way to implement a system that rewards commitment, and results in stable family environments.

The same way it is costly to means test tax breaks such as a winter fuel allowance (for which even UK pensioners living in Spain are entitled to) it would be too expensive to create a tax break for 'serious relationships' such as cohabiting couples.

Therefore, by giving the break to married people with a legal certificate it can be a blanket policy.

http://leilalacrosse.livejournal.com/2810.html

digbydolben

Baron, one of the complications of what you are saying is that we in the United States have discovered that quite a few "gay" couples have adopted children and are proving to be quite good parents, and yet are being discriminated against by the tax system, in terms of their abilities to shelter income for their kids' educations, set up trusts, etc. Otherwise, I quite agree with what you've written.

david skinner

“I’m not in favour of gay couples seeking to adopt children because I question whether that is the right start in life. We should not see children as trophies. Children, in my judgement, and I think it’s the judgement of almost everyone including single parents, are best brought up where you have two natural parents in a stable relationship. There’s no question about that. What we know from the evidence is that, generally speaking, that stability is more likely to occur where the parents are married than where they are not.”

Now before people reach for the homophobic button that is situated on some unmentionable part of their anatomy, let me ask you the question, Who said that?

It was none other than, Jack Straw. Never mind when he said it on the Today Programme, it was with within our lifetimes.

The question is , does Cameron endorse Straw's statement, made at a time when Straw was still in his right mind.

Nigel

It is interesting that in europe (the EU and beyond) fiscal recognition of marriage is almost universal,though the actual measures differ. Maybe our european cousins have good reason to do this. The UK in having "neutral" position is actually very muchin in a minority. It is also well down the list on any indicator of family and child wellbeing. For evidence to support Melanie one need look no further than accross the channel.

Baron

One of the theories on the origins of homosexuality holds that their ‘function’ is indeed helping heterosexual couples to raise kids. At a big number level, their commitment to children seems higher than those of heterosexual couples. I have no quarrel with it. What bothers me is this: what happens when the child grows up and cannot accept that his fathers name’s Paul, and mother’s Peter. Is it fair of anyone in the society to make the decision of gay adoption for the child?

I know of a case where this has happened. Everyone’s deadly unhappy, and the young man may not last.

John D

Melanie -- thanks for saying this and saying it well. It's sad that it's now necessary to state the obvious as if it were a novel idea.

Roger Malone

Once again Melanie has hit the nail squarely on the head! Why not stand for PM? You will get my vote for sure.

King Canute

Would it not be great if we could view aparallel universe where Chrstian charity etc which resulted in the formation of the welfare state never took place - a place where people are responsible for their action, it would be interesting to view this secular universe. perhaps in our own universe the only way to be neutral on this issue is simply to abolish the welfare state in all its forms and let individulas make their own arrangemnts - if there is hardship for kids without carring parents is that realy a problem after all we let 200,000 of them be aborted every year.!

Mr C.J. McCanna

Excellent analysis of Cameron's apparent support for marriage, and an insightful comment on trends in our society today. Keep up the good work!

Aiden Gregg

Ed Benson @ 1.59

You relevantly asked whether, if the ability to procreate, being unavailable to homosexuals, is sufficient reason to debar them from marriage, why should it not also debar from marriage heterosexual couples who are infertile, due to age or infirmity.

Bearing in mind the conditional "if" above, I can't think of compelling reason why it shouldn't be.

One counter-suggestion would be that it would be too awkward in practice to discriminate between fertile and infertile heterosexual couples. But that argument would certainly not apply to, say, elderly women; and the certification of probable fertility in both sexes is surely not technically unfeasible. If the institution of marriage really is all bringing up children soundly, then stopping infertile couples entering that institution should help further its goals and to clarify its purpose.

But one also could question the assumption of whether the ability to procreate should be an absolute criterion for entry marriage, given that even an infertile couple, whether homosexual or heterosexual, could also adopt other people' children. Although adoption is arguably an unnatural arrangement, it is nonetheless widely agreed to be a laudatory, if not supererogatory, service to society. (One could also add that a lesbian couple could have something of an intermediate arrangement: each could produce their own child with assistance of one or more sperm donors.)

But this consideration now opens another, more general larger can-of-worms: Who, exactly, is suitable to adopt, or raise, children in the first place?

Some people argue that, lest a child experience intractable identity problems, both adoptive parents must be of opposite sexes. I tend to think such suspicions are unfounded to overblown, as gender identity is environmentally rather robust. But more importantly, shared sex is hardly the only, or relatively speaking, hardly the most pernicious, characteristic that potential adoptive or natural parents might in principle possess. Is it really credible that, say, a successful and well-integrated lesbian couple would be less able to raise a child successfully than a criminal and alcoholic straight couple would? Would stopping the former from adopting a child, but letting the latter reproduce one, help or hinder the reproduction of civil society?

Derek BLADES

Pothead’s comment of 13 January was a breath of fresh air In nauseous fog of schoolboy sniggers and homophobia. Marriage contracts would give moral support to same sex unions that, as Pothead notes, are turning out to be models of respectability. Cameron may have slipped up on the wording but his heart is in the right place. I could never bring myself to vote for a Tory but if they do win all may not be lost in the struggle to make Britain a civilised country.

Michael Isola

Spot on analysis

Richie Craze

There is much to fault in the characterisation of gay rights and gay marriage as "selfish" and "narcissistic" and "socially destructive". If that is really the writer's opinion then it goes a long way to explaining her reputation.

I would have thought that science has paved the way for civilisation and progress. How do sexual mores feed people, keep them housed and warm, free from disease, with clean water to drink and technology to make their lives easier?

Eric Mival

I wholeheartedly agree with Melanie above, but it leaves me with a dilemma. Here was I contemplating for the first time in years whether to vote Conservative or not, largely because Cameron was pointing up the importance of marriage, whereas woolly Labour appears to do the opposite. I now realise that Cameron is like a number of politicians, trying to appeal to a range of people rather than have any inner convictions of his own. I guess I'll have to think again. How about Melanie for Prime Minister?