A renewed focus on how public policy can make it more likely that children will grow up with both a mother and father gives conservatives a new vocabulary for talking about homosexuals, a vocabulary that recognizes their rights as citizens of a free country without according them special status or approval. Public policy gives special privileges and protections to marriage because it is the most important institution for the raising of children. Homosexuals are free to form their own lasting unions and to make their own personal commitments to each other, but it trivializes marriage to give such unions the special protections of the law or the subsidies that are intended to help mothers and fathers raise children into upstanding citizens.” (emphasis added)