Monday, December 01, 2003

Op-Ed Columnist: Bill Safire On Same-Sex Marriage  

Op-Ed Columnist: On Same-Sex Marriage: "The libertarian in me says: civil union corrects an inequity in the law. There should be no legal or economic discrimination against homosexuals anywhere in the U.S. And what is lawful in Vermont or Massachusetts should be recognized in every other state because we are one nation when it comes to basic rights, popular statutes to the contrary notwithstanding.
That's the easy part. More difficult is the argument that the primary purpose of society's bedrock institution is to conceive and rear children in a home of male and female role models known as caring parents. But now that there are adoptive and scientific substitutes for old-fashioned procreation, and now that 43 percent of first marriages fail, the nuclear family ideal is not what it used to be. Little lock is left in wedlock."