I do not believe that defending traditional marriage between one man and one woman excludes anybody or usurps anybody's civil rights and denies anybody their civil rights.

Thousands of years and many civilizations have defined a marriage as the union between one man and one woman. With few exceptions those civilizations that did not follow that perished.

If I felt in the event of a royal wedding inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't I'd ignore it.

Marriage is sacred and protected and has nothing to do with violating our civil rights.

I rise today in support of Bill C-38 the Civil Marriage Act. I rise in support of a Canada in which liberties are safeguarded rights are protected and the people of this land are treated as equals under the law.

Civil union is less than marriage. Marriage is a sacred and valued institution and ought to be afforded equal protection.

My argument is simple which is that for several thousand years in Western civilization marriage has been the union of one man and one woman. Research is overwhelming that children need mothers and fathers.

Particularly black Americans many of them from quotes that I have seen and conversations I've had are sort of insulted that the civil rights movement is being hijacked - the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is being hijacked for something like same sex marriage. Black Americans tend to have a higher degree of religiosity.

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality birth within marriage parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

I have no difficulty with the recognition of civil unions for non-traditional relationships but I believe in law we should protect the traditional definition of marriage.

I have not supported same-sex marriage. I have supported civil partnerships and contractual relationships.

I don't think marriage is a civil right but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.

I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights and then there are other things - such as traditional marriage - that I think express a community's concern and regard for a particular institution.

Mrs. Parks' act of brave defiance rocked the foundation of American society and inspired generations of civil rights leaders and created a sense of hope for every American facing legal discrimination in this country.

I oppose any attempt to grant homosexual unions the same legal privileges that civil government affords to traditional marriage and family life.

King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.

However saying that I totally support the concept of civil partnerships in the eyes of the law and think it a disgrace that same sex couples have had to wait so long for legal rights protection and recognition.

I come from a profession which has suffered greatly because of the lack of civility. Lawyers treat each other poorly and it has come home to haunt them. The public will not tolerate a lack of civility.

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world considering us as a civilized and a Christian country that we deny the advantages of learning to women.

When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.

In any case decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort.

There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.

The conduct of President Bush's war of choice has been plagued with incompetent civilian leadership decisions that have cost many lives and rendered the war on and occupation of Iraq a strategic policy disaster for the United States.

As a vibrant force in civil society women continue to press for their rights equal participation in decision-making and the upholding of the principles of the revolution by the highest levels of leadership in Egypt.

Where there is an absence of international political leadership civil society should step in to fill the gap providing the energy and vision needed to move the world in a new and better direction.

In any case in so far as our knowledge of the universe carries us the advent of civilization for the first time on our globe represents the highest ascent of the life processes to which evolution had anywhere attained.

A knowledge of the forces that rule society of the causes that have produced its upheavals and of society's resources for promoting healthy progress has become of vital concern to our civilization.

If the views I have expressed be right we can think of our civilization evolving with the growth of knowledge from small wandering tribes to large settled law.

Our civilization has evolved through the continuous adjustment of society to the stimulus of new knowledge.

Western civilization unfortunately does not link knowledge and morality but rather it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent.