The vital public issue of marriage will be front and centre centrepiece at the World Congress of Families in Sydney this week. It is the seventh congress of its kind (being founded in 1997).

The importance of marriage itself, the debate over redefining marriage, marriage trends, families, and their link to education, health, and the economy will be addressed during the conference.

Speakers on the issue of marriage include Pat Fagan and William B May from the US, Jose Ureta from France, and John Anderson, Bill Muehlenberg, and Doctor David van Gend from Australia.

An event like this that will finally give the issue of marriage the attention it deserves is very much needed at this time.

Here at Conjugality, a series of blog posts will be covering the content presented in some of the key presentations on marriage. Watch out for these… click here to read whole article and make comments

Mother’s Day is for many families a touching celebration of the contribution of mothers to their families and society as a whole. But the assumptions underpinning the day, that gender is relevant in parenting and that mothering is different from fathering, are becoming increasingly controversial.

Indeed, some have questioned whether or not Mother’s Day is still relevant in modern society.

In the UK this year, The Guardian reported complaints by male same-sex parents about the prominence of Mother’s Day in schools.

And there has been a push this year for Mother’s Day to include celebration of two-mother families, and for Father’s Day to include celebration of two-father families. This is obviously logically inconsistent: either motherhood and fatherhood are different, complementary things to be celebrated (in which case the concepts of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day make sense), or they are… click here to read whole article and make comments

Ashley McGuire, the editor-in-chief of the online women’s magazine Altcatholicah, has written an article entitled “The Feminist, Pro-Father, and Pro-Child Case against No-Fault Divorce” at the Public Discourse, putting forward a very convincing case against no-fault divorce. The serious issue of no-fault divorce rarely gets the public attention that it deserves, so this article is an important contribution.

No-fault divorce helps no one and hurts everyone. So why is it still legal? This is not 1960. Women do not “need” marriage anymore, at least for financial stability, so they don’t need to enter prematurely into marriages that they then won’t be able to get out of. Couples who want out of a marriage because the spouse is abusive or unfaithful would still be able to get a legal divorce. And maybe, just maybe, if you make it harder to end… click here to read whole article and make comments

Family First New Zealand has received notification that government's Charities Commission intends to deregister the charity. Why? Family First has a traditional view of marriage being one man and one woman. The commission's investigation began just after NZ’s gay marriage debate started last year.

The decision means that the organisation will no longer be exempt from income tax and, more importantly for a non-profit, donations to it will no longer be tax-deductible. 

“This is a highly politicised decision which is grim evidence that groups that think differently to the prevailing politically correct view will be targeted in an attempt to shut them up,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“The Commission argues that Family First’s efforts to represent the voice of 80%-plus of families on the anti-smacking law or half of… click here to read whole article and make comments

Arguments over same-sex marriage so often take place on a superficial level, and devolve into emotional rhetoric and name-calling. For that reason, it was both surprising and refreshing to see two respectful, reasoned debates on marriage which Ryan T. Anderson participated in last week.

The first debate was between Anderson and attorney Alastair Gamble at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

Also last week was a debate at the New York University Law School. This debate drew quite a lot of attention, as Professor Judith Stacey admitted that, while she was arguing for same-sex marriage, she was also against traditional marriage altogether and open to allowing polygamous marriage and parenting.

The great thing about long debates such as these is that they allow the two sides of the argument to get a fair hearing, and make it possible for… click here to read whole article and make comments

In spite of all the rhetoric about “inevitability” and “overwhelming” public support for redefining marriage in Australia, it appears that the push to have a referendum on the issue will not succeed. Independent MP Tony Windsor has come out this week pushing for a referendum on same-sex marriage, saying we should take the issue “out of the hands of politicians.” But the same-sex marriage lobby is strongly opposed to any such move:

Australian Marriage Equality national convener Rodney Croome said on Sunday: ''Given a majority of Australians support this reform we believe a referendum would succeed, but we don't believe Australia should go down that path.''

Mr Croome said politicians were elected and paid to make laws and ''not abdicate responsibility by handballing to voters when it gets too hard''.

As Gerard Henderson, from the Sydney… click here to read whole article and make comments

Ricky Martin, the well-known pop singer, is in Australia for the filming of reality TV show The Voice. Of course, while he is here, he had to give his opinion on the same-sex marriage debate in Australia.

He said the legal recognition was "not about faith, it's not about religion, it's about human rights. It's about me having the opportunity to look my sons in the eye and say 'this is my husband and this is our family.' It's about self esteem, it's about dignity, it's about respect."

Leaving aside the fact that this is largely vacuous and doesn’t address most of the main arguments in the marriage debate, it raises the question: is it justified for the media to give celebrity endorsements of same-sex marriage such a large amount of coverage? There are numerous examples of this worldwide, ranging… click here to read whole article and make comments

This article was originally published at Australian website Online Opinion

“New Zealand has done it!”

“The sun will still rise!”

“It’s inevitable!”

These are not arguments.

This should be obvious, but the aftermath of the New Zealand vote to redefine marriage has once again shown how the same-sex marriage lobby tends to ignore reason and arguments in favour of meaningless platitudes.

We have heard countless times the last few days that since New Zealand has legalised same-sex marriage, Australia must follow suit. I wonder how far people are willing to take this logic. For example, New Zealand has a very creative pronunciation of the letter ‘i’. Does this (or thus?) mean Australia should adopt their pronunciation?

New Zealand MP Maurice Williamson said that “the sun will still rise tomorrow” if we allow same-sex marriage. Well, yes, most people would concede that. But… click here to read whole article and make comments

Last night (April 17) 77 people changed the institution of marriage in New Zealand from a conjugal union with the potential for generating children and providing them with the nurture of their own mother and father into “a union of 2 people regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity” with the potential for systematically depriving children of their mother or father, or both. All in the name of “love”. Starting in August.

Actually, just 17 people managed to do that, because the New Zealand Parliament currently has 121 members and… click here to read whole article and make comments

This evening, in New Zealand, the 120 members of Parliament will vote on same-sex marriage. Professor Rex Ahdar, of the University of Otago, published this cogent defence of traditional marriage in the New Zealand Herald yesterday. 

"Give us equality" ... "don't discriminate" ... These are catchcries of proponents of same-sex marriage. Gay couples assert the right to equal treatment and to deny them legal marriage is, they say, blatant discrimination.

This assertion deflects attention from the real issue: what is the true nature of marriage? Two visions of marriage confront us. The conjugal model says that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and a woman. The partnership model says marriage is a contract between committed, loving couples.

So what is marriage? Conjugal marriage is a comprehensive union (mental and physical, emotional and sexual) of… click here to read whole article and make comments