Creating a same- sex legal fiction just won’t work

EVEN before there were societies as we understand them, there was the biological unit of the female and her children and the male that sired them. She protected her cubs and he protected her. Whatever status and territory the adults won, they defended and kept for their offspring.

This unit, the family, has been the building brick of human society for thousands of years.

As societies grew more complex and these units more numerous, with inevitable conflicts of interest, there grew a body of law/ rules/ taboos around it and the institution of “marriage” was identified and protected. But not changed in its essence.

Human sin and sexuality being what they are, there has always been a certain amount of extramarital activity. This was not considered equal to marriage in any sense at all. Until now!

Creating a legal fiction saying two same- sex people in a relationship, however emotional it may be to themselves, is equal to a marriage will never make it so. It might be possible in theory to just shrug and say “whatever, if they want to do that; does not affect me”, except that we clearly see from overseas experience that that is not where it stays, and there are multiple follow- on issues, such that a country is worse off after than it was before. And we have the chance to observe it, and avoid the mistake. ROGER DALTON, North Ward.