GAY TRUTH

First, a declaration. I have long supported the idea that gay couples should be allowed to be joined for life with all the equal rights, recognition and dignity that any heterosexual couple or de facto couple enjoy under the law. As with most people, when the idea of same-sex marriage first loomed several years ago, I shrugged and thought, “Sure, why not?” I also accepted, as any sane person does, the counter-argument that, historically, marriage has always been uniquely, by definition, the union of two people of the opposite sex, ideally ’til death us do part, for the purpose of procreation. So — again, like most sensible people — I put these two conflicting arguments together and asked the obvious question: surely there can be some new form of legal civil union with an appropriately respectful phrasing and dignified ceremony that denotes a homosexual coupling for life with the intention of raising a family where children are intended to be the biological offspring of one of t