Via The Guardian..
Last month, the European court of human rights ruled that member states are not obliged to allow gay marriage, despite "an emerging consensus towards legal recognition of same-sex couples". Shortly afterward, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled unconstitutional the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids the federal government to recognise gay marriages. And then, last week, Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalise gay marriage, granting same-sex couples all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexuals.
It is difficult to see how a legal system that claims to take equality before the law seriously can deny marriage equality. Supporters of same-sex marriage regard inclusion into such an important social and legal institution as vital to the citizenship of gay men and lesbians.
But some take issue with this. As they are interested in preserving the diversity of gay relationships, they resist conforming to societal ideals of "normal" relationships. Their concern is that gay culture may perish as gay men and lesbians begin to pursue typical heterosexual norms by getting married and raising children.
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