Hi there,

This week we have fulfilled another of our New Year’s resolutions: to launch a blog on same-sex marriage, Conjugality. Check it out – it’s chock full of fresh stories. We will be topping it up regularly with articles from a range of contributors. The editor is Michael Kirke, an Irish journalist who writes from Dublin.

Although same-sex marriage, or if you want to know my true feelings about it, same-sex so-called marriage, is an immense challenge, we do want to be constructive in our criticism. Another purpose of Conjugality is to highlight the dignity and joy of genuine marriage between one man and one woman. There are many reasons why SSM has captured the imagination of “progressives”, but one is that respect for the traditional variety has been eroded by decades of divorce, infidelity and contraception.

Have a look. Leave some comments. We’d love to hear from you.

We close the week with four compelling essays. Anne Morse, a college student at Berkeley, makes a fascinating critique of contraception. George Friedman traces the conundrums of today’s international affairs to the dramatic years 1989, 1990 and 1991. And in two articles from Canada, Rebekah Hebbert (another college student, at McGill) asks why Quebec parents are being forced to send their children to an objectionable ethics program and Peter Jon Mitchell asks whether Ontario will ever succeed in stamping out bullying.

Cheers,

Michael Cook, Editor, MercatorNet