Dutch opponents of gay marriage don't seem to have spent any time rebutting the "conservative case" for gay marriage. Why should they? All participants in the debate--the gay community as well as the political left, center, and right--took gay marriage to signify the replacement of marriage by a flexible and morally neutral range of relationship options. To appreciate gay marriage's role in encouraging the recent upsurge of Dutch parental cohabitation, we need only take seriously what participants in the Dutch debate said. Spend a decade telling people that marriage is not about parenthood and they just might begin to believe you. Make relationship equality a rallying cry, and people might decide that all forms of relationship are equal--especially young people, of family-forming age, most of whom have left religion behind. Dutch conservatives made a valiant stand for procreation and parenting as of the essence of marriage, and they were soundly beaten. Having duly considered and rejected the essential tie between marriage and parenthood, the Dutch started to abandon their inertial traditionalism and began to experiment with parental cohabitation in record numbers. Again and again, voices from across the political spectrum argued that gay marriage signifies the demotion or abolition of marriage as the socially preferred setting for parenthood. It should come as no surprise when Dutch parents act accordingly.

Time was we had something called families. When men and women came together and stayed together, whether out of love, for the sake of the kids, for both, or none of the above. Maybe they kept at it just to make each other miserable. But they stayed together, grew old together and cried when one of them died.

Since the ultimate concern of conservatives is to preserve the institution of marriage, they would probably be better off caving on gay marriage rather than acceding to the most popular alternative: civil union. Gay marriages won't affect straights. But if civil union laws were to catch on, as Jonathan Rauch argues in his provocative new book, "Gay Marriage," many heterosexuals would probably eschew marriage altogether. That would be worse for society than seeing Rosie O'Donnell get hitched.

The gay rights movement has succeeded, both legally and in many situations politically, because of a confluence of reasons. Homosexuals are only about 2-3% of the population; but they also have many more nonhomosexual friends, family members, and colleagues. They have the natural political sympathy of much of the liberal movement, that tends to take a broadly egalitarian and sexually libertarian view.

Homosexuals are generally not very socially insular, at least by choice; while there are some mostly homosexual organizations and social circles, homosexuals tend to work, play, and socialize with heterosexuals. This means that, once there's enough tolerance for homosexuality that homosexuals are willing to identify themselves, many people -- even many conservatives -- find that quite a few of the people they like are homosexual. And this has been especially so in elite circles that have a disproportional impact on law, policy, culture, and even public opinion.

Men who acknowledge having had homosexual sex within the previous five years will not be allowed to make anonymous sperm donations under new rules that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to announce today.

New York State already bars gay men from donating sperm anonymously, and most of the nation's sperm banks have similar restrictions because of concerns over transmission of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

You are right that most moderate and young Americans can find themselves happy for gay newlyweds just as we can be happy for single mothers who just gave birth and newly divorced parents now free to pursue their dreams independent from a nasty mate. Still, that doesn't mean that as life unfolds there will not be negative consequences for children. And therein lies the rub. No one wants to deny anyone the happiness of marriage or birth, or freedom from the oppression of an ugly relationship. At the same time, we have our nagging doubts that these are not ideal circumstances for children. And because children are vulnerable, they need us to be led as much by our head as by our heart when assessing adult choices.

I wish I could be more sanguine about these images. But I can't. We'll all see how this plays out over time. In my heart I hope you are right that more good than harm will come from gay marriage. And in my head, I'm not at all convinced that the effects will be as benign as hoped.

The proponents of this redefinition of marriage believe it is a step toward complete state neutrality regarding marriage: neutrality among types of couples, as well as neutrality among religious and non-religious ideas about marriage.

But this is only a pretense of neutrality, and the legal definition of gay couples as married actually enshrines into law two presumptions about marriage. These first is that marriage is best understood as a contract between people who love each other; the second is that love is best understood as mutual affection. These are not neutral ideas; in fact, these presumptions aren't even true.

[I]t's foolish to put faith in laws that supposedly prevent gay marriage in Massachusetts from spilling over into other states. When it comes to same-sex marriage, it barely matters how the law is written. Again and again, gay-marriage advocates have shown themselves eager to disobey any law that would prevent the spread of gay marriage from state to state. If you believe this process can be ended by anything short of a federal constitutional amendment, you are dreaming.

While Republican committee and subcommittee chairmen have gone public with their quest to help Americans enjoy healthier marriages, divorced Republicans are -- by and large -- refusing to discuss their personal experiences with the institution of marriage.

Just because advocates of polygamy have tried to leverage the Lawrence decision to support their cause doesn't mean there are no differences between the two marginalized groups. And it's just not an argument against gay marriage to say, "I told you those bigamists would use this in court!" It would be stupid for the bigamists not to try.

NBC's Rehema Ellis championed how "just after midnight thousands celebrated what was once just a dream," but she soon fretted that since the federal government does not recognize the marriages, "such things as Medicare and Social Security benefits are still denied to same-sex couples."

More than 1,000 gay couples sought applications for marriage licenses on the first day Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex couples to legally wed, a survey of the largest cities and towns in the state by The Associated Press showed.

Separately, a survey by The Boston Globe found that two-thirds of gays who applied for the licenses Monday were women, and 40 percent of those female couples said they had children in their households, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

Half of the couples had been together for at least a decade, according to the Globe survey of 752 couples questioned in 11 cities and towns.

What about the younger heterosexual couple who also want intertwined lives without the full economic entanglements of marriage? Or the widowed mother who is economically dependent on the son who is also her sole caregiver? Or the two friends who decide to raise a child together but who aren't, and don't want to be, married? Or the lesbian couple who want their child's biological father to be a recognized part of their family? When is the law going to catch up with them?
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"Not very long ago, there were strong arguments being made in the gay community that if you want to get married, great, but that should be private. The state should not be in the business of regulating who participates in the institution or not," [Katherine Franke, codirector of Columbia's Center for the Study of Law and Culture,] says. "We seem to have lost the thread of that argument completely. Both the campaign for and the political backlash against gay marriage have in many ways made politically unviable a more progressive or more democratic way of thinking about domestic affiliation."

But for many of the other leaders of large gay and lesbian advocacy groups directly involved in the push for same-sex matrimony, the logic behind the reproductive rights movement in the 1970s applies. They might not ever personally need or want a civil marriage, but they have dedicated their professional lives to ensuring that right for every American.

But once those two nice girls down the street get their marriage license and the Earth doesn't rumble, opponents will have to play on very different political terrain. From now on, what we talk about when we talk about same-sex marriage will be real live coworkers, cousins, and friends. The debate will no longer be about abstract cultural values; it will be about people. Newlyweds make great B-roll footage, as we saw this past winter in San Francisco. Once same-sex marriage is no longer abstract but particular, its opponents will start to seem really cranky--and really, really mean.

The stroller has sparked debate among African pediatricians who think the device -- first crafted as a labor-saving tool for the European middle class -- may damage the relationship between a mother and a child.

"The pram is the ultimate in pushing the baby away from you," said Frank Njenga, a child psychiatrist in Nairobi, Kenya's bustling capital. "The baby on the back is actually following the mother in warmth and comfort. The baby feels safer, and safer people are happier people."

In the United States and Europe, strollers have long been controversial. Recently, some doctors and child psychologists have blamed them for everything from pediatric obesity to low self-esteem later in life.

Jane Clark, professor of kinesiology at the University of Maryland, said there is concern that Americans are overusing strollers for older children, causing toddlers to be less physically active. A growing movement among child advocates promotes the idea of carrying babies more and getting them out of their strollers.

As our ancestors evolved, the ability to attract a female mate through good looks became may have become more important in the mating stakes than the ability to fight off male rivals, suggests a new study.

Yarbrough, a part-time bartender who plans to wear leather pants, tuxedo shirt, and leather vest during the half-hour ceremony, has gotten hitched to Rogahn, a retired school superintendent, first in a civil commitment in Minnesota, then in Canada, and now in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to recognize gay marriage.

But he says the concept of forever is "overrated" and that he, as a bisexual, and Rogahn, who is gay, have chosen to enjoy an open marriage. "I think it's possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner, not in the polygamist sense," he said. "In our case, it is, we have, an open marriage."

Before the ceremony, Drury, the clerk, had to clear up one detail: "I have to ask you what you would like to be called: spouses or wives."

Spouses was the answer.

So Drury asked each woman if she took the other "to be your be lawful spouse."

"Yes I do," each answered.