A medical emergency in my family last week set off rounds of hospital visitations, with various members making bedside visits, spelling each other and talking to the doctors, sometimes in the middle of the night.

This got me thinking about the notion of family -- the people who you can count on in a crisis; who will come no matter what, stay as long as it takes and keep coming back; who will be there when there is no emergency, just for the regular day-to-day stuff of ordinary life as well as the happy, sad and special occasions.

It is these things that matter. Not whether the people you love are related by blood, the same or opposite sex, biological or adopted children or parents, but how you love them, support them and see them through.

We sometimes lose sight of this in the public debate over what constitutes a family, the latest instance coming out of the nation's capital.

In case you missed it, Washington, D.C., legalized same-sex marriage last week. That brings to six the number of places in the United States where gays and lesbians can become lawful wedded spouses.

Elated couples, many of whom have been together for decades, lined up to register for licenses, saying they couldn't wait to get hitched. Presumably, these are people who already have stayed together through good times and bad, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. And they did so without any of the legal rights and protections afforded to male-female spouses -- even as some 50 per cent of opposite-sex marriages ended in divorce.

I've joked in the past that anyone who really opposes same-sex coupling should support gay marriage because (a) those couples will probably go the same way as a lot of straight spouses and hardly ever have sex again, and (b) half of them will split up.

But in all seriousness, it just doesn't make sense to define relationships solely by the sex act. Sex, after all, is not the most important component of most marriages.

Making a home together, sharing financial and social responsibilities, rearing children, caring for elderly parents -- these are the things that marriage is supposed to entail. Same-sex couples can, and do, perform all these functions for each other and their kids -- who, according to all the reputable research, do as well emotionally, psychologically and academically as the children of straight couples. There is no reason not to legally recognize these facts except for baseless prejudice and bigotry.

Recognizing same-sex marriage religiously is another matter, and this is where things get messy.

Decidedly not elated over the district's new marriage law was the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. Its Catholic Charities receives $20 million from the city to run social programs. In February, the agency ended its 80-year-old foster-care program rather than comply with Washington laws on nondiscrimination by licensing same-sex couples. Archbishop Donald Wuerl (formerly of the Pittsburgh Diocese) transferred the entire foster-care program -- 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members -- to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families.

As of March 1, the diocese also ended spousal benefits for new hires at Catholic Charities or for staff who might marry in the future so to avoid providing benefits for same-sex couples. President Edward Orzechowski said he regretted having to make the change, but called it necessary to serving the organization's clients while "remaining consistent with the tenets of our religious faith."

If the diocese chooses to marginalize itself in this way, it is certainly within its rights. Another agency can probably handle foster care just as capably, and nobody is forced to work for Catholic Charities if the spousal benefits present a problem -- although it could cost the agency some fine employees. Still, no other religious organization so far has taken such drastic measures.

I get it that the archbishop is standing on a principle he considers bedrock, and he certainly is not the only religious leader who thinks and feels this way. But that should not guide the law of the land.

Despite all efforts to the contrary, the United States is still not a theocracy. Yet the growing acceptance of same-sex relationships -- from the move to end the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy to the provision of same-sex benefits in the workplace -- is sending social conservatives into overdrive.

One example: The fourth annual Southern Evangelical Seminary Veritas Lecture on April 1 will feature a presentation on "Marriage: Why It Can and Must Be Saved -- The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage," with speakers Maggie Gallagher and Robert George. Seminary students can look forward to hearing that the marriage tent will collapse if just anybody is allowed inside. If memory serves, restricted clubs used to have the same philosophy -- until their membership declined. Suddenly, all those "undesirables" started looking pretty good, as long as they could pay the freight.

It seems to me that, as a nation, we should recognize and support the family units that pay the freight -- that pick up those jangling phones in the middle of the night and rush to the emergency room, sit at their ailing loved ones' bedsides, read to them, help with their dinner, take them home and watch over them.

We should not be haranguing them because of how they were formed or whom they include. We should be saying thank you for making us a more humane society, and the rest of us can only hope to do as well.

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