The Archbishop of Dublin believes that couples, including homosexual couples, living in relationships other than marriage should be granted some of the legal rights currently available only to married couples.
This seems fair enough to me. Seeing as this whole debate has been dominated by "rights" and not by what is best for society, then those rights should include all people who live in dependent relationships. I bet for every gay or lesbian couple living in Ireland there are five houses with two brothers or two sisters or a widowed parent living with a single child. This seems particularly common in Ireland.
However, all relationships are not equal in terms of the benefits that accrue to society from those relationships. Marriage of one man and one woman is the bedrock of our society. Marriage does include the pro-creation and raising of children. No, it's not exclusively about that, but without children or at least the possibility of children, marriage has no meaning.
We all depend on the future generations. We want tomorrow's children to be the honest cops, brave soldiers, wealth creators, willing tax-payers and carers of the elderly when we reach old age. That goes for the gay man as much as it does for the father of six.
Someday European (& American & Japanese & Chinese etc.) society will realize that undermining marriage was a big mistake and benefits exclusive to those for whom children are a possibility and/or a reality will be renewed. Until then we can just sit back and watch as our society commits gradual suicide.
