COMMUNITY AT LARGE THE STAKEHOLDER IN MARRIAGE

THE family unit of mother, father and children has been the fundamental basis of all communities, tribes, clans and societies since time immemorial.

Marriage is basically a civil arrangement or public declaration that two people are combining as a social unit for the purpose of propagating the human race.

Other considerations may include cementing family, business or strategic alliances.

In all of these cultures, marriage has only been between men and women, sometimes between one man and many women (polygyny) and, less frequently, between one woman and many men (polyandry).

Although conducive to stable relationships and personal fulfilment, historically love is not an essential precondition for marriage and may have little to do with it other than as an aid to partner-finding.

While religions have embraced and celebrated marriage, faith is not the prime stakeholder, it is the community at large.

In an increasingly self-centred, value-lacking and virtue-rejecting society (remember modesty and chastity?), the aggressive campaign by some homosexuals and their supporters denigrating those who uphold traditional values is to be expected.

However, they fail to recognise the absurdity of a position whereby on the one hand they stridently demand to know what their ‘marriage’ has to do with anyone else, then on the other demand public recognition for it.

By all means allow civil union and facilitate equality of outcomes for these couples, but leave marriage alone. Vote NO.

Peter Mackinlay, Geelong