Former editor of the weekly Irish Catholic, David Quinn, commentates via an article in the Irish Independent on an issue of huge social severity that’s been tugging at his moral conscience.

Two guesses as to which great moral issues it’s about. No, not abortion, the other one.

The only other one…

The reaction of many ordinary people watching ‘The Late Late Show’ [a "propaganda platform" for gay marriage] the other night will have been, ‘Sure let them marry, they love each other, what harm can it do?’

But the harm [in calling same-sex partnerships 'marriage'] lies, as mentioned, in the complete denial of the value of motherhood and fatherhood.

You read that right. This comes after Quinn first stresses that he supported the introduction of civil partnerships, and names lots of places around the world which have also introduced the two-name system (marriage versus civil partnerships) of which he supposedly sort of approves, presumably because it accords more or less the same rights but does so with only a nominal difference. Hey, it’s just about what you call it, he opines. But if we were to call same-sex partnerships “marriage”, discriminating them with just that nominal difference – merely calling them by the same name  so that people aren’t made to feel irretrievably excluded from the “tradition” – well that’s the same as “the complete denial of the value of motherhood and fatherhood”.

It just follows doesn’t it? It’s the only possible derivation: I think we should use the same name for ‘marriage’ whether it’s same-sex or two sexes getting married, therefore I hate all your mums and dads.

The journo complains:

Every debate I have ever been in about the issue of same-sex marriage very quickly becomes a debate about the value to a child of having both a mother and father as distinct from two fathers or two mothers, or some other combination of adults.

That’s funny, I wonder why that keeps happening to the poor chap. It’s not as if his article on same-sex marriage turns out to hinge entirely on the subject of same-sex parenting, after all. Oh…

The crux of his argument (which completely ignores the fact that same-sex civil partners as opposed to same-sax marital spouses can adopt anyway) is this:

In order to justify same-sex marriage, its proponents must deny that uniting children to their mothers and fathers is a worthwhile goal of social policy. Therefore, they insist that two men can do the job of a mum and a dad just as well, as can two women. This means they deny the importance of sexual complementarity.

Of course, even if “sexual complementarity” could be shown to be a significant factor of significance in the upbringing of children, this would make it only one of many such factors. It would join the relative wealth of the parents, for example. What about the size of your extended family? That could have an impact on the well-being of children, one way or the other, couldn’t it? We know that people’s opportunities, health and happiness vary a great deal by postcode; if it turned out to be an effect on a par with “sexual complementarity” then should some streets be banned from marrying? Also, what if you have two parents of different sexes, but your dad is relatively effeminate or your mum is a little bit masculine? Would Quinn ban such couples from marrying, too?

There are so many possibilities, but no one including David Quinn gives much of a damn about those hypothetical correlations when it comes to whether or not actual real people should be allowed to get married, let alone whether it is called ‘marriage’, let alone whether they should be allowed to raise children. Only the one possible – hypothetical – factor of “sexual complementarity” gets a look in, and not only a look in, but a determining presence in the equation. This one factor is suddenly so important to David Quinn, that it mandates social engineering.

It’s almost as if he’s saying that if you support using the same name for dual-sex and same-sex romantic pairings, then you’re necessarily hating on parenting in general. Oh wait, that’s exactly what he’s saying:

So by all means support same-sex marriage, but realise that in doing so you will be denying the value of motherhood and fatherhood. Is that really what you want to do?

Oh good last rhetorical question, Quinn. Bravo, you’ve totally caught us out.

Link: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/couples-commitment-is-whats-important-2615364.html

There is at least one letter in reply.

And in other news… an Italian historian says homosexuality caused the collapse of the Roman Empire. Prof Mattei told Radio Maria, a Catholic radio station, that “The abhorrent presence of a few gays infected a good part of the (Roman) people”, making the population “effeminate” and thus susceptible to barbarians. Oh dear, lack of sexual complementarity can bring down whole civilizations, too!