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Marriage There is a push in a number of Western countries to introduce homosexual marriages. This is the latest of a number of moves to change the concept of marriage and also to change the idea of the nuclear family. It started some years ago when common-law (or 'de-facto') relationships were given the same legal standing as married couples. There was also an opportunistic push by governments to tax married couples more than single people, giving a disincentive to marriage. In the earlier part of the last century it was considered normal to stay with a partner for life and divorce was considered not quite Kosher. I can remember as a child divorced people being spoken about soto-voice, like people would talk about someone accused of rape, today. Certainly, many people stayed in unhappy relationships that they would have been better off out of. However, there was also tremendous pressure for a couple to work through their difficulties. A few years ago a newly married couple took part in a venture to survive a year on the inhospitable South West coast of Tasmania. When they arrived he had the view that he was practical and he wasn't going to show any weakness in front of his new wife. During the course of the year they learned that the only way they were going to survive was by drawing on the strengths of the other and by being tolerant of any weaknesses. They both said that they came out of it very much stronger in their love and respect for each other and admitted that without such a test their marriage probably wouldn't even have survived the year. Nowadays, who's going to go through that process when they could simply sign a document and get a divorce? Children suffer in a divorce; this has been well documented. What isn't so well documented is that it is the partners who miss out on a tremendous opportunity to learn about themselves and to learn about real love, rather than infatuation. The people who want to debase marriage have a misguided notion that commitment to one partner is stifling and that sexual freedom is liberating. It isn't. It is simply enslavement by base desires, a far harsher master than any spouse. There may be something to be said for a legally binding homosexual certificate, giving them same obligations to each other as a heterosexual couple. However, I suspect that this would not be supported by the majority of the homosexual community. The Sydney Gay and Lesbian mardi-gras, and other such demonstrations, are not held to support monogamous relationships; they are promoting pure sex in its many guises.