Family mocked

MALCOLM Richards,  (November 15), challenges me to justify why a gay marriage is worse for our society than a heterosexual one. 
We live in a country where family breakdown is rife, one of the reasons is that real marriage and real true family life has been mocked and ridiculed. 
Gay rights activist claim that “lifestyle choice” means gay relationships should be treated identical to heterosexual ones. But one of the core reason for family breakdown is precisely the view that marriage is merely a “relationship” for people to choose or not, from a menu of alternative lifestyles. 
However marriage is not a “relationship” but a unique institution for safeguarding the upbringing of children. It has to be protected in turn by a web of law and custom, tradition and attitudes. That web has been destroyed by the “all lifestyles are equal” doctrine. 
Gay marriage is a sexual dead end as far procreation is concerned, unless a third party is involved, and children produced either have no mother or no father, and children need a mother and a father. Finally, it is heartening that real prejudice against gays is now so much less that it was. But how sad that gay activists are now perpetrating a mirror image of the same intolerance once shown to them.