Quote:(a) gay adoptions, is it *really* in the interests of children to have homosexual parents if adopted?
I'm still undecided on that one. I think it is in the interests of the child to have parents. I doubt it does any harm to them to have gay parents. I doubt a gay couple would treat each other much different to a straight couple, so they'd both set a good example.
Quote:(b) spousal support from former straights who come out as gays, letting them 'game' the system. There have been cases where, two gay women live together, and each get the single mother's pension, after having had a turn at being straight.
Plenty of straight women do that when they move onto the next man. They live with their new partner but claim child support from the old one, even though that is supposed to stop (I think) if they remarry, or enter into a defacto relationship.
Quote:Sorry fd but this is a very poor attempt. By what 'definition' is marriage between two people but not between a man and a woman? Bandying about the authority of 'by definition' has to be done with more care.
Marriage is a set of rights that applies to two people. No change to those rights is required if the sexes change. This is not some dictionary or abstract definition. This is the actual rights I am talking about. In legal terms, marriage is defined by the legal rights attached to it. That is the only thing that gives it meaning in a legal context.
Quote:The parents live on, as it were in the children, cousins, nephews, nieces. Homosexual partnership is dead with the partners' demise. there is noone left behind.
The legal rights attached to marriage have nothing to do with the right to bear children.
Quote:Marriage - a man and a woman - is not the same as a reciprocal relationship between any two peoplee.
The legal rights are a reciprocal relationship between two people. That is all the government has to do with it.