"It's not gay men who're abusing women and abandoning children - it's straight men."

In Britain, the shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, has given an important speech outlining the Conservative Party's policy on families.

Short version: they like them. All sorts of them. And they believe in supporting them.

Imagine the Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bush saying something like this:

Now, traditionally, the right has tried to support the family by offering financial incentives and fighting a cultural battle against those who don't conform.

I think it is important that we look at the financial, and cultural, signals that Government sends. And that's why I believe David Cameron's commitment to back marriage in the tax system and end the couple penalty is right. But I also think we need to be clear about where we've gone wrong in the past.

I think that the Right was wrong to get hung up on homosexuality. I think we indulged prejudice in the eighties and missed the point. It's not gay men who're abusing women and abandoning children - it's straight men. And the demand for civil partnerships, proper inheritance rights and equality in adoption rights from gay couples is not a rejection of commitment but a desire to see commitment celebrated and publicly embraced. It is right and moral.

I also think the Right was wrong in its rhetoric about single mothers. We need to recognise that it's those fathers who've abandoned their responsibilities, not mothers left holding the baby, who should be challenged about their behaviour.

Full text here. Worth a read. It has actual thoughts in it.