In a rather interesting magazine called The American Conservative, which is not conservative necessarily as we understand it in Orange County, but actually represents pacifist conservatives of all kinds (and yes there is such a thing as pacifist conservatives) Stephen Baskerville has written an excellent essay maintaining that “Marriage exists primarily to cement the father to the family” and that “Homosexuals did not destroy marriage, heterosexuals did. The demand for same-sex marriage is a symptom, not a cause, ofthe deterioration of marriage.”  Because the father has become a relatively loose or absent factor in many families today, we are more and more tending to think matrilineally; and more and more we tend to think of our relationship with our children or parents as primary, and our marriages as secondary. This is because our relationships with our children and parents are, unfortunately, often longer lasting.  I think divorce is sometimes a necessity.  But it should be seen, in my opinion, as something like surrendering a child for adoption.  And yet we find divorce easy in our culture, but we would rather abort our children than surrender them to become other people’s children!  Baskerville tells us that a Parental Rights Amendment is more important than a Definition of Marriage amendment.  I certainly don’t favor same sex marriage.  I am offended most by the attitude some have that all through history, on every continent, in every religion, people were wrong about this, but we are supposedly right!  I do not like ingenious readings of the Constitution of the State of California, or of the United States, to read into them interpretations that, as the Irish say, if the original writers of these documents were alive they’d roll over in their graves.  But he is right; no homosexual conspiracy destroyed marriage; they are just picking up the pieces, and taking the next step.