Nowadays you can hardly talk about marriage and not feel the dark insecurity of the vast majority of men and women, many of whom would go a long way, only short of death, to hold on to their tightly guarded paranoia that marriage has everything to do with a man and a woman. The rest of us who suggest otherwise could take a blipping vacation at Guantanamo.

Little wonder why in a party last week, a good ol' fashioned conversation with a friend quickly turned into an exchange of politely thrown cynical jabs as soon as the usual suspects showed up. The suspects, as I feared, were not Jack and Jill and Dr. Phil.

Instead, they were Adam and Adam and Eve and Eve - the same sex couples, same sex cohabitants, or simply people who enjoy companionship and take part in bedroom activities with the like-minded ones of same sex.

Our talking point wasn't, of course, how same-sex people have sex with each other. Even by my friend's standard that would be dumb, although he detests the entire "homosexual" thing with utmost sincerity (he says he can't bring himself to imagine how guy-guy or girl-girl things actually happen, so I asked him to surf the web with a more open mind).

We talked about the rights of homosexuals to marry, to call themselves married, and to call themselves a family, all of which now only applies to men married to women and women married to men.

The questions we asked ourselves were: Should homosexuals marry? More precisely, should we let them marry? (I know, putting it this way sounds offensive, almost degrading them to second class citizens, but that's the current reality) and should they adopt and raise children and call themselves a family?

My answer was 'yes.' I am not a homosexual; not even remotely, platonically, or by any other conceivable or imaginary way you could call yourself one. My friend's answer was 'no,' a thumping negative, all the while hoping he would get his point across the fence and stick it inside my bone head. Unfortunately, his twisted logic (I told that on his face and he turned bloody red) wasn't any better than what the Vatican offers in the press releases, turning his efforts into a total waste.

I told him he's an ass; and I can tell you it's good to have friends who don't mind being called an ass.

We agreed on something. Assuming same sex couples someday get their due right to marry, which they should get without further delay, we agreed the Vatican could considerably clean up its image by FedEx-ing their blessings overnight. This has the potential of becoming the masterstroke of Benedict XXX, should he decide to strike again after so callously quoting from obscure texts from the Middle Ages to insult Muslims. Methinks the Pope still kinda "lives" in the Middle Ages, so he is probably more comfortable with the medieval texts and ideas. Enough digression.