I understand the family debate has raised its silly head again in the political arena after a fairly long absence. In some ways I welcome that just to get a feel for the nonsense that people hold to. It can be helpful to know the weakness of your opposition. Interestingly it's the Labour government that wants to show flexibility in what constitutes good family whereas the new shiny Tory leader is banging the old drum of one-man-one-woman being the only way to go.

For me this issue has a simple essence. As good food is nourishment to the body, then good relationships are nourishment to the soul. This is the essence of my view. Everyone needs good relationship - with friends, colleagues, teachers, parents, brothers, sisters, the postman, the dog, the lot. Simply, the more quality the merrier.

It is a facile notion that good relationship has to come predominantly from inside family and has to come from inside a particular type of family - i.e. one set up by biological parents who have entered into a marriage contract. This is supposed to be what makes for turning out the best kind of people. It could not be more wrong in my opinion. As I've said often enough the traditional family is more problem than solution. Families seem to be virtual incubators for an infinity of emotional problems that are passed down unchecked through the generations. Bad relationships can flourish freely in families - husband to wife, sibling to sibling, parent to child - like a rampant disease. A child brought up in an unhealthy relationship dynamic tends to take that contamination into the world and pass it on.

In creating the good society I doubt if it matters what kind of family unit is employed, whether single parent, multiple parents, same sex parents, no parents even. The important thing is to have good relationships in life generally which basically means those that don't do damage.

What makes for quality relationships and what doesn’t? That is the crucial question that needs answering. The ones who stick to the idea of the contractual one-man-one-woman model being the best environment for raising children can't get away with simply restating it over and over as a tablet of stone - it is best because it is. Some of these traditionalists argue that their case is backed by evidence and that kids from alternative family types are a source of delinquency. But there are always other factors in the mix for why that might appear so. By my argument it is poor quality relationship more broadly that is the problem issue with deviancy. It has no necessary connection purely with family type. An alternative family type may or may not produce emotionally healthy children depending on relationship quality.

In a culture such as ours which has throughout its history invested such huge value into one model for how family should be, supported by deeply entrenched habits, secular and religious law, and vast economic resource, then this is not going to shift easily. It is also going to be extra difficult for any better alternatives to emerge. New and experimental practices will be hampered and compromised simply because they are up against such a gigantic monolith. Adherents to the convention can then easily point to struggling alternatives with “see, told you they wouldn’t work”.

All this needs to be seriously examined. If politicians and academics were to do their job properly they would set about trying to define exactly what causes psychological damage within human relationships and extrapolate from there. That would only be the starting place. But it's an important starting place. Everything should emanate from it. It is only then that this debate will have some kind of proper insight attached to it.