[quote from the article] If it's "nonbinding," then why do it? Oh, I know! To be annoying. It's the political equivalent of the defense lodged by the bratty kid in the back seat waving his hands around in his little sister's space. "I'm not touching her!" "It's nonbinding!" [end quote]

Allow me to play "Devil's Advocate" here. Isn't this at least somewhat similar to having a local government body declare itself to be a "nuclear non-proliferation zone,", this in the context of specifically making a statement against governments having nuclear weapons? (Yes, it IS valid, and probably even "binding," in terms of making a statement that one wishes to have no nuclear power facilities built within ones locality, but that was not the intent of the statement.)

I'd suspect that a "natural family" statement being made by a local government is actually an attempt to give, for example, landlords and employers a legal "out" if they don't wish to rent to or hire gays, unmarried couples, single parents--Hell, even just "singles"!

There is a "regular" who writes reams of LTTEs to my local papers, and one of his hot-button issues is gay marriage. His chief argument against gay marriage is that gay people cannot make babies with one another, and that any children adopted (or conceived through other means) by the couple are not the same as a "real family," due to the kids' not having blood ties to both parents.

And I've always had to chuckle at his line of reasoning, because apparently this highly-religious individual has never considered that Joseph was not Jesus' "real father" (according to the N.T.), and therefore, Jesus' family was--by this man's stated values--immoral.

I also doubt that this man truly wanted to insult all adoptive families (or, for that matter, infertile couples who use AID), because his fellow members of the Religious Right are always going on and on about how the embryos and foeti of single mothers should be allowed to complete gestation and then be adopted-out to (presumably "good, Christian", heterosexual, and married) two-parent families. Does he mean to imply that married, heterosexual, but barren couples are not "real families"? I'd imagine that if I were to personally encounter him and verbally back him into a corner, he'd probably sputter a bit, and then he might say, "Yes," just for the sake of saving his ridiculous arguments that are intended to devalue gays. --But he'd a have lot of his co-religionists to answer to! It's gratifying to see these yahoos tripped up by their own poorly-thought-out rhetoric.