THE word "marriage'' is synonymous with the "marital act'', which is performed inside marriage, where two people, a man and a woman, come together to make a permanent, complementary commitment to love each other and to be open for life.

This marriage becomes a "one flesh'' union unable to be broken by any civil law.

Any other union which is not marriage (that is not between one man and one woman), is simply that, another union. Marriage is the number one building block to every civil society.

The product of marriage, the child, has the absolute right to be raised by his or her mother and father. No civilised society has the right to normalise or institutionalise behaviour which undermines the rights of the child to his or her mother and father.

We need to put in centre stage the rights of the children over and above the desire of adults.

Family structure matters to children. Just ask Katy Faust, a young woman raised by two loving lesbian women who yearned for the father she never had.

The distinction between homosexual unions and heterosexual marriages is simply the reality that one union produces children and the other doesn't.

Technology (IVF, test tube babies, frozen embryos) has opened a Pandora's box and the cultural Marxists who have no concern for upholding the Christian values of the once Christian civilised west are turning children into the biggest commodity since time began. We all need to face the reality that there is no such thing as same sex marriage, it is an oxymoron. Simply call it something else.

John Ramsey

Goovigen