In the run-up to a parliamentary debate on 5 February 2013, the thinktank ResPublica has published a paper opposing equal marriage. The authors, Roger Scruton and Phillip Blond, both well-known in Conservative circles, appear to argue that allowing same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples to marry undermines Western civilisation, says Ekklesia associate Savitri Hensman. The paper makes some interesting points, but its case is ultimately flawed and unreliable on practical, theological, historical and legal grounds.