Dear Editor,

Fionola Meredith’s headline (11 August) urges Arlene Foster to do ‘the right thing over gay marriage’.  But gay marriage would be like a ‘gateway’ drug, opening the way to various societal harms.  It would lead to incest (cousin/cousin, brother/brother, father/son and hence father/daughter), bigamy (if you can change the definition of marriage once, you can do it twice – and why not, if all you need is love?) and general undermining of marriage.  Traditional marriage promotes social cohesion, ensuring that a child will be brought up by its biological parents; gay marriage guarantees that it will not.

In 2000 Hillary Clinton said, “Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.”  As recently as 2008, Barack Obama said, “I am not in favour of gay marriage”.  They changed their positions for reasons of political expediency.  I hope that Arlene will put a higher value on her personal integrity despite the disrespectful comments of the media.

Yours faithfully,

Dermot O’Callaghan