Madam, - Various correspondents to the Letters page in recent days have drawn a parallel between homosexual partners and infertile heterosexual couples on the basis of their inability to produce offspring.
This comparison fails to pay due cognisance to the fact that sometimes heterosexual couples who have been declared infertile "miraculously" end up having children.
Since it self-evidently cannot be predicted which currently infertile couples may end up having children, it would be unjust to deny any of them the right to marry and thereby to form that stable unit in the context of which, all other things being equal, children are best brought up. The possibility of reproduction thus safeguards the link between marriage, children, and the common good.
It is moreover precisely this possibility which, unless I have got it badly wrong, cannot be realised by homosexual partners and explains why right reason would deny them the right to marry - whatever our legislators might decide. - Yours, etc.
KEVIN E O'REILLY PhD, Faculty of Philosophy, Milltown Institute, Dublin 6.