Shortly before Christmas, The Irish Times published an article that took a crack at yours truly over my support for the special status of marriage.

But nowhere the article does its author, Anthea McTiernan, consider the evidence in favour of the family based on marriage, nor does she come up with a working definition of family breakdown.

Instead, McTiernan is concerned with praising family diversity. She says that in the forest there is room for all kinds of trees, and in society there is room for all kinds of families.

She quotes from a recent column I wrote for The Irish Independent and takes particular umbrage at my description of the marital family as the “gold standard” family.

But actually, in using this term, I was quoting Carl O’Brien of The Irish Times. Anthea doesn’t point this out.

For that matter, I might also have quoted child law expert, Geoffrey Shannon, or Dr Maureen Gaffney formerly of the National Economic and Social Forum, who have also described the family based on marriage as the “gold standard”.

Anthea seems to believe that the more family diversity we have, the better. But what does this mean in practice? What it typically means is more and more children being raised without a married mother and father, and commonly without any father at all.

It makes no sense at all to celebrate this in an unthinking fashion. It makes no sense to celebrate the growing number of children who don’t even know the name of their father. It makes no sense to celebrate the growing number of marriages that end in divorce or separation.

In fact, what would family breakdown even look like to Anthea? Has she a working definition? In her view, a divorce seems to add to family diversity, and therefore should be celebrated. Or is this really what she thinks?

Is it a good thing that so many children grow up without a father? In her view it must be, because this also adds to ‘family diversity’.

There is a lot of wishful thinking in Anthea’s article, but little rigorous thinking and there is no consideration whatever of the evidence in favour of the married family. She needs to go back to the drawing board.

PS The Millennium Forest mentioned by Anthea does have plenty of variety. But it is man-made. So far as I know, natural forests usually have a dominant species of tree. Worth mentioning.