“I’m not sure I’d dare admit this in print if I were a young man just embarking on a media career, but I’m 58, so here goes: I believe that a “heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman, preferably married to one another, are – other things being equal – the best parents”. This belief shouldn’t be remotely controversial: it is, after all, what people across the world have considered to be no more than “common sense” for hundreds of years. Yet it has become almost unsayable today, unless you want to be branded a bigot. We hear a lot these days about how people’s personal choices must always be respected, and about how gay couples have a right to marry and “have children”. But it seems this tolerance doesn’t extend to people with traditional beliefs who dare to question this approach”. (Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, lightly edited).

Do you think he is right? Is there any truth in what he says? Are some people really showing the same intolerance towards heterosexual parents as they used to show to gays? Are children best reared by a man and a woman together? Shouldn’t the welfare of the child be the paramount issue? I would like to hear your views.