How It All Begins

From Brendan O'Neill, writing for the Telegraph:

Anyone who thinks the introduction of gay marriage will give rise to a new era of liberty and choice should look at the Canadian experience. There, the passing of the 2005 Civil Marriage Act, which allows same-sex unions, unleashed a phenomenal amount of state meddling in families and relationships. Most notably, the state utterly overhauled the traditional language of the family, airbrushing from official documents terms such as "husband" and "wife" and even "mother" and "father". The Orwellian obliteration of such longstanding identities, which mean a great deal to many people, demonstrates that modern politicians are more than happy to ride roughshod over the majority in their desperate pursuit of some PC political points. ... Most strikingly, on birth certificates some Canadian provinces have replaced the term "father" and "mother" with "Parent 1" and "Parent 2".

Such tinkering with lingo, the replacement of words that have real depth and meaning for millions of people with bureaucratic terms that no normal person uses, reveals the social-engineering instinct that lies behind the gay-marriage campaign. Because this is not simply about elevating gay relationships, as we are so often told – more importantly, it is about demoting and devaluing traditional relationships, as built on marriage as it was once understood.