Nation of Bastards

"Erudite and impassioned - an act of faith and of resistance to the insidious claims of the post-Christian and post-liberal state."
"F. C. Decoste, Professor of Law, University of Alberta"
"A brilliant expos of the implications of same-sex marriage - and a compelling analysis of what it will take for society to reclaim the birthright of freedom it has lost in a reckless social experiment."
To some, same-sex marriage is evidence that society has finally come of age. To others, it is yesterday's issue, posing no danger to traditional marriage. To still others - McGill University's Douglas Farrow among them - it has turned civil society on its ear, creating a new political situation in which several things are no longer clear:
. Is the state the property of the citizenry? Or are citizens, with their cherished personal associations, including marriage, now the property of the state?
. Who "owns" the children, now that natural parenthood had been replaced by legal parenthood?
. Is the family still "the natural and fundamental group unit of society," as the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" claims? Or is the concept of the "natural" moribund?
. What is marriage for, anyway?
Douglas Farrow is associate professor of Christian Thought at McGill University in Montreal. He is the editor of "Recognizing Religion in a Secular Society " and co-editor, with Daniel Cere, of "Divorcing Marriage."