I recently enjoyed listening to the audiobook version of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and am now thoroughly enjoying the sequel, Speaker for the Dead. In this latter book, Card includes, in the mouth of a character, the following bit of wisdom:

Why is marriage necessary for anyone? Fools say, Why should we marry? Love is the only bond my lover and I need. To them I say, Marriage is not a covenant between a man and woman; even the beasts cleave together and produce their young. Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman on the one side and their community on the other. To marry according to the law of the community is to become a full citizen; to refuse marriage is to be a stranger, a child, an outlaw, a slave, or a traitor. The one constant in every society of humankind is that only those who obey the laws, taboos, and customs of marriage are true adults.

It’s unfortunate that Card understands the importance of legal marriage clearly enough to articulate it so well, and yet still wishes that his homosexual “friends” remain strangers, children, outlaws, slaves, and traitors.