From Rev. Brendan J. McCarthy, M.A. re same-sex "marriages".

The recent rush for people of the same sex to undertake the responsibilities of "marriage," confronted me with the task of tracing the history of couples of the same sex and their history of such marital unions.

To my great surprise, there was little, if anything, on the subject where one would expect to find it, namely, the histories of Greece and Rome. In fact, I could find no mention of it because they didn't show any great desire to manifest this side of their peccadilloes, if such existed.

Now the recent preoccupation with the subject drove me further into the field of what one might call irregular marriage situations, but I could not establish a pattern. In an age of sexual freedom, I could see that it was free from using marriage as a so-called cover for the otherwise moral stigma of intercourse used as a sport. Then I encountered a reference in the Brittanica which gave figures covering the apparent ratios of male and females involved in same-sex. But there was no mention anywhere of "same-sex" marriages. Pleasure was sought and found, and experienced on the spot.

Then something happened, and that something eluded me until I encountered a "same-sex marriage" performed in a registry office, with possibilities for such a union being witnessed in certain "churches". I never envisaged such a thing. But in Ireland we have a saying when we are totally flummoxed with a moral problem beyond our humble minds, "Boys, that's a quare thing, isn't it?"

Clarenville, NL