Apparently the situation is this: in UK gays have been able to register a partnership, which is an arrangement that does not equal marriage in the eyes of the law. For instance, as far as I know, with respect to inheritance and the like. Now there a law is under debate that would enable gays to a full marriage, that is, one that the law recognizes as it would all other marriages.

The catholic church has launched a campagne from pulpits urging its flock to oppose gay marriage. I understand that this has not to do with whether the marriage is performed in a church or not.

Gay couples make wedding plans amid angry Catholic sermons

"On Sunday a letter from two senior Catholic archbishops was read in 2,500 parish churches during mass, arguing that a change to the law would reduce the significance of marriage. Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and Archbishop Peter Smith, the archbishop of Southwark, urged their flock to sign a petition against the move, telling them it was their "duty to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations"."

"While the new dean of St Paul's Cathedral the Very Rev Dr David Ison has called on the Church of England to embrace gay marriage, the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, joined the Catholic-led opposition. "I happen to believe that to change the law in the end would be forcing an unjustified change," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show."

I am thinking, is this a matter of freedom of speech?

Or is it a matter of one set of people trying to determine what others can (or, in this case, cannot) do?

If the gay people gain the right to marry, will hetero marriages loose in validity?

If you have a cherished tradition, and others use it differently but with the same name, would you loose something? Or, if different people than your group use the same tradition, would you loose something?

Would it be intruding on your tradition or, or maybe watering it down, or would it be enlarging it?