>Jim,
>
>It depends what you think marriage is for. If marriage is simply an event to celebrate committment, then of course nobody should be discriminated against. If marriage is society's way of encouraging and supporting unions that create stable homes for kids, then the kids' interests have to be paramount, not the perceived rights of adults who feel left out.
>
>I'm not sure whether there is evidence that gay couples make better or worse parents. There is ample evidence that kids in a home with male and female "parent" do better than those where the father figure is absent.

You seem to be hitting my soft spots. "Father figure", no more, no less. Does anyone object to the lack of a "mother figure"? Or is the pater familias so important because it projects (psychologically) into further figures of boss, commander, priest, landlord, and any male god you may put at the end of the line. So a father figure is deemed to be necessary in order to perpetuate the male-ruled hierarchies and make sure there's never a true equality of genders.

As to the evidence you mention, sure - this is a man's world. With nobody there to tell them all the dirty tricks that most women just don't want to have anything with... of course they're less equipped for the society as it is now. Does that really/necessarily mean they're worse persons?