If you think of me as an "anti-SSM advocate," you do not understand my concerns

Occasionally we highlight comments left in other posts. It seems a shame that some of the best writing, sometimes, is only read by a very narrow readership with the stamina to follow a thread for a long time. So here is one of our guests who is putting it all very well...

If you think of me as an "anti-SSM advocate," you do not understand my concerns, which are much broader than that issue. I understand why many have come to think of marriage as a "love license." Many of us are not concerning ourselves with society's need to encourage men to commit to women who give birth to their children and to the children they create. That trend started happening, to the detriment of children, long before we began to discuss how and whether to legally recognize same-sex unions.

Same-sex couples can choose to share their lives, forming relationships that are in some ways similar to, and in significant ways different from, the relationship between husbands and wives. To say that is something different isn't disrespectful or an insult and does not imply anything, positive or negative, as to the quality or value of those relationships.

To say that it is the exact same requires us to pretend that men and women are interchangeable and that mothers and fathers aren't necessary or even important to children or society. I am concerned that we may already risk losing the assumption that children are ideally situated in the care of their (competent) natural parents when possible. This has profound implications.