One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

I'm taking one thing at a time. With the children and launching my solo career it would drive me to a nervous breakdown if I tried to organise a wedding on top of that.

I understand why creative people like dark but American audiences don't like dark. They like story. They do not respond to nervous breakdowns and unhappy episodes that lead nowhere. They like their characters to be a part of the action. They like strength not weakness a chance to work out any dilemma.

Those who condemn gay marriage yet are silent or indifferent to the breakdown of marriage and divorce are in my view missing the real issue.

On the other hand I believe there's hope because the breakdown and the repair are happening simultaneously.

All too often government's response to social breakdown has been a classic case of 'patching' - a case of handing money out containing problems and limiting the damage but in doing so supporting - even reinforcing - dysfunctional behaviour.

By measuring the proportion of children living with the same parents from birth and whether their parents report a good quality relationship we are driving home the message that social programmes should promote family stability and avert breakdown.

The financial costs of family breakdown are incredibly high.

When families are strong and stable so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating.

We will see a breakdown of the family and family values if we decide to approve same-sex marriage and if we decide to establish homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle with all the benefits that go with equating it with the heterosexual lifestyle.

The breakdown of the black community in order to maintain slavery began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.

For families across the UK who are income-poor but more than that whose lives are blighted by worklessness educational failure family breakdown problem debt and poor health as well as other problems giving them an extra pound - say through increased benefits - will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.

Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.