I want to make the point again that these issues seem to hit with monotonous regularity not just at gay people but also at everybody outside marriage. In the old days marriage was virtually universal. The continuing increase in births outside marriage may be regrettable and certainly shakes old fogeys like myself who are used to a more traditional arrangement, but just over one third of all births in the last quarter were outside marriage. How are we to protect the people concerned and their children, who are also citizens?