I didn't realise this kind of dinosaur was still extant. David, report to your nearest museum immediately!

Is this guy really allowed to practice medicine? The AMA is obviously a very broad church...

Well done Ireland.

This article is over-the-top!

Ireland introduced Civil Partnerships, in 2010, giving same-sex couples rights and responsibilities almost the same as those of civil marriage. The roof did not fall in then. Same-sex marriage is just a small further step.

oh the irony, I wonder most people in the street would be more concerned with kiddie fiddling priest then with any made up ideas about guy peoples ability to parent.

The church has lost what moral "authority " it may have had when it was more concerned about protecting it's self then the children.

Well done Ireland, and i hope Australia follows soon. Only thing in the way is the Roman church and its apologist.

Dr van Gend's latest article smacks of hysteria and desperation. His side of the argument know that the old "because the bible says so" arguments they have used in the past hold no weight with the populace. Hence, the recent retreat to "someone think of the children" and other such obfuscations should be seen for what they are: a desperate attempt to cobble to together a faux-secular argument for bigotry.

Dr van Gend and his ilk know full well that they are on the losing side of history. It's now just a matter of time until Australia joins the rest of the developed world and commits to full equality for all of her citizens.

I'm very proud this week to have Irish blood coursing in my veins!

I am disappointed that OLO even bother to give this article an atom of oxygen. Yes, freedom of speech is important but, surely, such fossilised attitudes have no place in a progressive forum

thanks David for being a voice of reason. Unfortunately when it comes to promoting perversion reason goes out the window mainly because people want their own immoral lifestyles condoned. It makes them comfortable in sin. Be encouraged and read the end of the book. All ends well for those who have repented and turned from their immorality. Others will have their moments of glee but it certainly wont end well for them.

Well, welcome to attitudes firmly rooted in the 15th century. Not sure how the doctor can belong to a society that purports to respect human life but is then so disrespectful, disdainful, insulting to, and intolerant of homosexual people. I do believe the Australian home for such dinosaurs is owned by Clive Palmer. Clive, come and collect the next prime specimen for your display.

Well Ireland or Eire has changed! At one time in the 1960s one couldn't get through customs with the contraceptive pill without being challenged. Divorce was not allowed. And Abortion? (Go to Hell) Anyway, I was amazed with a Yes vote. If the Roman Catholic church will not conduct marriages, then they are back to square one. Civil only. Fair enough. I suspect lawyers won't be offended, more divorces for them to handle. Personally, if same sex partnerships are protecting the mutual equity in their long term relationships I can understand it. But why get at the churches? They can't force them into conducting same sex marriage in churches. But the Irish, who can understand them completely?

Thanks, David, for a sensible input on this decadent mess.
Marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and all men and women have equal rights to enter that institution.
Whatever the relationship is between same sex couples, it is not marriage. They should work out what it is, and give it a name, not hijack the word already taken for a well established social institution.

They have already hijacked the word “gay”, and put it to its current inappropriate use.
It is sad that Ireland has succumbed, and I do not share David’s optimism that Australia will not be a future victim to the virulent same sex political activist movement

Bird's fur and horse feathers/bah humbug!

Given it's actually impossible for same sex couples to produce a child, without considerable assistance by others of the opposite sex, it's difficult how their relationships, which are for all practical purposes merely ratified rather than actually permitted, abandon children?

It's hard to see that change as violating the rights of children!

Which are considerably violated by conventional couples coming to a parting of the ways; or living in forced cohabitation; or by the historical abuse by the church managed orphanages/foster homes or at the hands church officials; negatively impacting on children!

The only real changes as far as children are concerned; may be the enhanced ability of some formerly discriminated against couples finally able to officially adopt; otherwise unwanted or church abused/outraged/buggered/raped children.

And for all practical purposes, no more evil than the love and care provided by same sex siblings, mum and aunt Samantha; dad and uncle Sam!

We for our part should do no less; as opposed to continuing to allow a 20% or less minority to decide what is moral or entirely natural/decided in the womb, in today's inherently decent society?

And given the "church's" history, which includes entirely unnatural celibacy; serial recidivist rape and buggery of small children, along with the even more evil cover ups!

It's time we got their unwanted noses/manifestly fake morality and their evil minds out of our bedrooms; and under the light of truth seeking warts and all public inquisition!

One needs to look at the hand with its pointing fickle finger, if only to see the three remaining fingers, are pointing right back at the accursed accuser!

Not for nothing is it writ large, evil is that evil thinkth?
Rhrosty.

It comes as no surprise. What else would you expect from a people whose greatest achievements and contribution to the world have been leprechauns, blarney and Guinness?

It's sad really, when you think about it in those terms.

Before I read the comments I made a small bet with myself that if anyone agreed with the medieval and obscurantist rubbish perpetrated in this article it would be runner and leo lane. Sure enough, there they are, parading their bigoted ignorance for all the world to read.

Fortunately, they, like the author of this worthless article, are a rapidly diminishing minority. Like Abbott they are the last bastions of discredited bigotry and like Abbott they will be swept aside by the tides of history.

Thank you David.
I endorse your article.

Let us stick to facts.

"More than half the Irish have voted for homosexual marriage,...."

Not so, more than half of those that bothered to vote, voted "Yes", that is not half the Irish people nor even, possibly, half of those eligible to vote.

No one knows what the majority thought, they may support the idea, may reject it, the only sure thing is that they didn't bother to vote.

Every time I see this argument - that marriage equality will deny children heterosexual parents - and where there is the opportunity, I ask, "how does that follow? What has legal recognition of relationships got to do with family structures?"

I never ever get an answer.

It seems that it is really a figleaf for this view expressed, with more honesty, I have to say, by runner:

".. promoting perversion reason goes out the window mainly because people want their own immoral lifestyles condoned. It makes them comfortable in sin. Be encouraged and read the end of the book. All ends well for those who have repented and turned from their immorality. Others will have their moments of glee but it certainly wont end well for them. "

It's just bigotry, pure and simple. I use the term "bigot" carefully; a bigot is someone who holds a negative attitude towards a group with no sound basis for doing so. I have never, ever, heard a good argument for homophobic attitudes, with the fallback being "I don't like it, it's icky" (like the runner comment above) and/or "my holy book says so", and or "I just think so".

I also have to ask why this sort of thing gets published. A range of views is great. We should have them for a healthy society. But constant repetition of a non-argument in the service of denying people justice; one has to wonder whether that warrants a platform.

In Ireland, as in Australia, it is only Honoured Priests who have sufficient God Given Morality Credits to bugger kids

- and get away with it.

Thankyou Church Lawyers

Cardinal Icky McPoota

The author has indeed a reason for alarm:

"parents in Massachusetts have been denied the right to withdraw their child from lessons by gay activists and church adoption agencies in England have had to close rather than adopt babies to homosexual households. A teacher in London was demoted for refusing to read a storybook to her class promoting same-sex marriage, and the former Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, was reported to police by a Greens Party MP for teaching Christian doctrine on marriage during a sermon."

However, he bangs on the wrong door:

Why can't a parent withdraw their child from ANY lesson and for whatever reason, or without even having to state their reason?

Why can't a business or a charitable institution be able to choose its customers?

Why can't a school-teacher follow their conscience in what they teach?

What right has the state to place its dirty foot in a religious institution?

These and many other issues of the kind affect us all in one way or more, so instead of working for this sector or another, the author should condemn the powers of government, which if curbed, would eliminate all the problems he mentioned!

Taking these monstrous powers from government and giving it to churches instead, is not a solution either - it has been tried and it has back-fired already.

Some correspondents to this site feel that homosexuality is immoral and that children will lack a father or a mother.
I would suggest that there are thousands of children who lack either a mother or father and grow up to be quite well balanced as long as they have love and affection even from a single spouse. I agree that the ideal would be to have two live-in parents of both sex, but again there are many such families that are totally dysfunctional and the children suffer as a result.

I looked up immoral in the thesaurus which produced many definitions and came to the conclusion that really none of them described gay people any more than any hetrosexual person……..Unless you associate the majority with the dogma promoted by the church and their bible, supposedly written by their God which I for one regard as pure mythology and superstition. After all, the Old Testament even sanctions murder and slavery which surely has to be immoral. Love between two people can hardly be called such.

bad, wrongful, wicked, evil, unprincipled, unscrupulous, dishonourable, dishonest, unconscionable, iniquitous, disreputable, fraudulent, corrupt, depraved, vile, villainous, nefarious, base, unfair, underhand, devious; sinful, impure, unchaste, unvirtuous, shameless, degenerate, debauched, abandoned, dissolute, reprobate, perverted, indecent, lewd, licentious, wanton, bawdy, lustful, promiscuous, whorish; informal shady, low-down

SHORT&SHARP
This is not a “progressive” forum, or an anti-progressive one. It is however deeply committed to free speech, and I applaud it for that; even (especially) when it published articles like this, that I completely disagree with.

Wearestardust
Yep, the logical leap from children to marriage is non-existent. The vote will not change anyone’s right to have children, adopt or anything else.

Maybe it’s time for our own referendum on this issue.

@Is Mise. When a government gets elected in western democracies it frequently has less than half of the eligible vote. In the recent UK election for example, the Tories got about 25% of the eligible vote, and a little more than a third of those who did vote. Would you call that government illegitimate? In fact the Irish referendum Yes vote did substantially better than Cameron. Where voting is non-compulsory we usually have to assume that the non-voters either don't care enough either way, or that those who do vote represent the same proportions among parties as those who do not. Unless you are going to insert a clause to the effect that the vote must equal at least 50% of those eligible to vote, the whole argument is pointless. Why not just accept the Irish result for what it was, as so eloquently expressed by their Prime Minister.

@ Rhian: it's not about progressivism or anti-progressivism.

The concern I expressed is about repeated ventilation of bad (or, in this case, absent) arguments for injustice. Arguments for things I deeply disagree with, I can deal with. Indeed, an opinion that is unable to withstand argument is pretty weak. But not calling out bad arguments for bigotry is also weak, and promoting them without question - by, for example, publishing them on a website - is itself supporting bigotry.

[I know it upsets people when one uses the B-word. Channelling Tim Minchin and The Pope Song for a moment; which is worse: calling out bigotry for what it is, or silently consenting to it by not opposing it?]

Concerns about free and fair discussion don't really fly either. If these sorts of weak or absent arguments were being floated about Indigenous people's rights, I don't think we'd be standing for them. That we do stand for them in relation to the rights of LGBTIQ people just indicates how deeply entrenched is lack of regard for LGBTIQ people - we don't notice the double standards we hold.

In relation to referenda, it's not pertinent to Australia. But leaving aside the constitutional and other technical issues: the Parliament of Australia has managed to deal with enfranchising Indigenous people and women, and a range of other rights and equality matters. Saying the Parliament can't deal with this and that it needs to go to the people is to support the idea that certain kinds of sexualities, as public issues, uniquely, are legitimately something that is so sensitive, that legitimately offends some people so much, that unlike having the vote it needs special treatment in terms of making laws. My view, contrary to that, is if some people don't like the gayness, don't be gay. Go and whine on the ACL FB page, but leave the rest of us alone.

Dia dhuit Seamus Ua Néill,

I'm well aware of all that, my point was that the author said that a majority of the Irish had voted "Yes" when it is demonstrably not the case.

My second son voted 'No' on the principal that he is opposed to marriage in general and considers that neither Church nor State should have a part in it; he has a fond regard for the Brehon Laws.

Slan,

Is Mise.

Wearestardust

I agree this is a badly argued article, and should not go unchallenged. But that entails pointing out its flaws, as you have done, not trying to silence it.

I would apply the same argument to other people propounding views I find objectionable.

On the referendum I’m in two minds. A referendum has great legitimacy. The 1967 referendum on indigenous rights was a milestone in our history that we can be proud of, and I’m sure many in Ireland are feeling the same today. Marriage is a social construct, and I’m not comfortable with the State and politicians having the deciding say on who can and can’t marry.

On the other hand … going through parliament is quicker and cheaper, and unlike Ireland we don’t need a referendum to change the law. And, if we view the issue from a rights perspective, then equal treatment of citizens before the law is a fundamental right that should not be subject to the vagaries of public opinion

SS marriage is inevitable, the churches have to start thinking about how they are going to survive in a culture that views the Bible's gender determinations as an abomination.

Perhaps, the churches need to support the idea of privatising marriage for Christians, whereby, the government takes no interest in the relationship whatsoever.

James O’Neill, true to form, ignoring the truth, as usual, and calling me a bigot.
I simply point out facts, which is not what bigots do.. Bigots(such as yourself, James), ignore facts, and make baseless, disparaging remarks.

The adjectives you use to describe the article are completely inapplicable, and you put forward no justification for their use. They come from your bigotry, and refusal to face facts.

' Well, welcome to attitudes firmly rooted in the 15th century'

actually Minotaur Sodom and Gommorah was a long time before the 15th century.

David,
As an atheist I would be expected to be in favour of gay marriage. I am not for these reasons:
1. Institutionalised monogamy( or the nuclear family), is the only basic building block of society which provides a proper basis for nurture and education of children, which in turn brings children up to the maximum of their potential to produce welfare , invention and adaption in those societies with that building block.
2. That is demonstrated by the fact that such societies ( based on judeo- Christian belief systems) are the only ones which have ever produced the inventions , from steam engine through to computers and internet, which have multiplied man's productivity many thousand times. Other non- Christian non-Jewish societies are now producing great wealth with the use of such inventions but they have also adopted the nuclear family as the basis building block of society.

3. If we step outside the nuclear family as a building block we have no basis for denial of the validity of second third and fourth marriages to Muslims and we lose the fundamental basis for our prosperity. We could have a large section of our society based on an "aLpha- male" structure like lions, kangaroos, deer. One dominant male and a mass of males whose chances of sexual contact are with virgins in heaven or as a product of warfare.

4. The unique compact involved in traditional marriage is the undertaking by one party to make raising of children a first priority in the knowledge that the other party will merge financial and other resources to make up for the inherent sacrifice in that dedication to child raising.

The concept of marriage is hugely important institution we will alter at our peril. The personal relationship legislation already in place makes it unnecessary to fiddle with the institution to achieve justice between all co- habitants anyway.

[Deleted for abusive language.]

voxUnius,

We can all be thankful for "John Joly FRS (1 November 1857 – 8 December 1933)[who] was an Irish physicist, famous for his development of radiotherapy in the treatment of cancer. He is also known for developing techniques to accurately estimate the age of a geological period, based on radioactive elements present in minerals." (Wikipedia).

One of many notable Irish persons, and be thankful, if you rent, that you live under Irish derived law and not British law.

Old Man

thankyou, you are wiser than you realise.

Old Man

Why should an atheist be expected to oppose gay marriage? I am a Christian, and I support it, as do most Christians I know (in admittedly rather liberal Anglican circles).

Re monogamy – the nexus between child-raising and marriage has long been broken. We can have sex without having kids, and even have kids without having sex. Being a sole parent is no longer a guarantee of destitution and social ostracism. Marriage is neither necessary nor sufficient to raise a child successfully; lots of stable loving couples don't bother marrying. Many married couples choose to have no children. Nor is marriage a guarantee of monogamy.

The nuclear family as we understand it is quite a recent phenomenon. Extended family groups were much more common until recently, and in many places still are.

There is no reason why allowing gay marriage should be a step on the road to polygamy.

Marriage is an important social institution, but its form is not governed by immutable laws of nature. It varies between cultures and has changed over time, and can change again.

' Mate, it is fitting that sodomy does not apply to priests - as their Good Works absolves them.'

strangely enough plantagenet a more accurate position is the earth worshippers doctrine

' is fitting that sodomy does not apply to secularist - as their Good Works absolves them.' First and foremost they bow to mother earth and preach the warmist doctrines.

anyway I dare say many countries (gleeing in their regressive family destroying doctrines) are likely to go back to the 6th century at the rate they are going. Especially Europe. And of course we know how tolerant the bedfellows of secularism (Islam) is towards homosexual acts.

Homosexuality is a normal part of the range of human sexuality and has nothing whatever to do with heterosexual marriage or reproduction.

Flamboyant, exhibitionist homsexuality of the sort that most exercises those of small mind and poorly calibrated moral compasses is a tiny subset of the homosexual population. The vast majority of homosexual men and women go completely unnoticed by the rest of the world, despite the prurient interest of the small subset of heterosexual nincompoops who infest the more rat-eaten church pews and vestries (and apparently, quite mystifyingly, the occasional medical clinic).

If good people who happen to love people of their own gender want to show that love by signing a marriage contract, then I say more power to them. It's gotta be better than the miserable, loveless horror of having to wake up in the same house as the likes of Runner every day.

Every time this topic comes up on OLO, I read through the comments looking to finally see a sound, rational and evidence-based argument against same-sex marriage, and every time I'm disappointed.

The entire article is naive from a developmental-psychological perspective and Is Mise is here nit-picking over the numbers in the vote with the pretense of being concerned with facts; Leo Lane makes a whole bunch of assertions without providing any reasoning to support them, and then chastises James O'Neill for apparently doing something similar; Old Man has listed three historically and sociologically naive arguments not supported by the evidence, and then finishes with the slippery slope fallacy for good measure; and runner, well, he's just runner, and is still on track to being the only person on OLO to have never said anything that was in the slightest bit accurate.

I hope I haven't missed anyone.

"Ireland has written a social suicide note.."
"..yet the good-natured Irish succumbed to the stupidity of nice."
".. the dementia that is afflicting the decadent West.."
".. Australia we will not be that stupid.."

What a disgraceful use of abusive mental health stigma, even using the agony of suicide to describe the vote of the majority. It is much more than a blast of homophobia and rampant bigotry: it's an attack on caring societies and their acceptance of diversity. It is impossible for van Gend not to know about both the detrimental effect of such language on the mentally ill and the excessive rates of suicide and mental illness of LGBTI whom he attacks. I am one such survivor, surviving. This is a doctor insistent on leading but violates the Mindframe and SANE Australia's guidelines on media reporting on suicide and mental health. http://www.sane.org/stigmawatch

Where is Online Opinion's responsibility toward the Mindframe National Media Initiative which advises to refrain from the "gratuitous use of the term 'suicide' out of context"?
http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media

Van Gend's argument is duplicitous and disingenuous to the point of lying, eg " no unjust discrimination against same-sex couples in any way". That claim is counter to his next claim that "the greatest cultural gain of this referendum will be that all Irish children must now be instructed in the constitutional normality, indeed desirability, of homosexual behaviour, and conscientious objectors will be silenced by the big stick of anti-discrimination law." He has been a commentator, including here on OLO, of the Safe Schools Coalition and knows full well that prevention of LGBTI bullying and stigma is a responsibility that flows directly from anti-discrimination legislation where marriage inequality has been an exemption. In Victoria the school curriculum was updated to include LGBTI as normal human diversity by Minister Bronwyn Pike in 2006.

This is merely stigma-loading marriage equality with his rejection of the decriminalisation of homosexuality (SA 1975) and of anti-discrimination legislation (mid 90s). We have come a long way since SA in 1975 but we still carry like a millstone these immoral voices.

Hi there Dr David van GEND...

I totally agree with everything you've said ! For years now I've witnessed some of the more deleterious effects occasioned by all this 'societal experimentation', with gender and unions, and I do wonder precisely, where it'll end !

Serving in the police for over 32 years, the majority as a detective, I've had to endure some of the more disturbing sequels brought about by this modern trend of gender manipulation, refinement and unfettered sexual experimentation, together with the various 'fusions' attributed to those 'innovations' ? Some seem innocuous enough, many just break-up and move on. Regrettably some result in very nasty homicides ?

I have no difficulty, in fact I strongly support enshrining in legislation, the rights and protections of Gay people, as provided to all members of the wider community. I do wonder, if legalised, what'll be the consequences of break-ups, thereafter divorce ? Who'll obtain custody of any children (if any?) particularly if a male marries a male ? How will the Family Law Court deal with the many dissimilarities in an acrimonious divorce ? Fresh complications for police too, who're required to oversee the complexities associated with a variation of domestic violence ?

I emphasis I'm no expert, married twice with kids and grandkids, so at best I only possess a journeymen's knowledge of raising children, and preserving a good marriage.

However, there appears to be significant evidence suggesting children have the best chance of a normal upbringing, with a stable mother and a responsible (male) father. Each accountable for their own (unique) part in their upbringing ?

I'm not suggesting all Gay unions are bound to fail, there are some that prove to be quite satisfactory. Most endure the same pressures and struggles as we all do ? Such relationships do indeed attract additional problems, specific to their unique nature. Therefore requiring a much greater commitment for success. Making it just that much harder to inculcate those very necessary values and normal living skills, that children really need, in order to progress safely and successfully through their entire lives.

O Sung Wu, homosexual people already form relationships and experience breakdowns of those relationships. Homosexual people already care for children and negotiate care for children after relationships break down.

As a heterosexual man who's experienced relationship breakdown I can vouch for the fact that it can be pretty nasty for heterosexual people too.

I do agree that the best possible outcome for children is probably to have a loving mother and father, but a pair of loving mothers or fathers has to be superior to a pair of heterosexual parents at each others throats, or a single mother who has estranged the father or any of the range of lousy starts that some kids get.

I know you're a sincere person and so I respect your expressed view a great deal more than those of some others, but I think in this case perhaps you are influenced by something other than the particular arguments you have put forward in forming those views.

There is no rational or ethical reason for homosexual people to be prevented from having an opportunity to make a happy life with someone they love, including the chance to formalise their commitment through marriage.

" ? Fresh complications for police too, who're required to oversee the complexities associated with a variation of domestic violence ?"

What, you were in the police for 32 years and you think LGBTI domestic violence will be new. Hello! Don't you actually mean you had a career denying our domestic violence not offering us the support of police for our safety? Your portrayal of police is no longer acceptable behaviour and they now work within anti-discrimination legislation and through community policing strategies where they aim to understand and work with communities rather than against them.

If spurious capitalisation is shouting what is your spurious use of question marks? Are trying to change your controversial statements into questions so that you can't be attacked?

AJ Phillips,

It may be nit picking to make reference to the author's evident mistake in saying that the majority of Irish people voted 'Yes', but the facts are that only a majority of those who voted cast a 'Yes'.

I also point out to people, now and then, that an ass is an animal when they use 'ass' to mean 'arse', I'm programmed against Americanisms.

Having been a metrologist for some years I do like accuracy.

That’s close, o sung wu.

<<…there appears to be significant evidence suggesting children have the best chance of a normal upbringing, with a stable mother and a responsible (male) father.>>

But the evidence also suggests that just having two loving parents (even if one parent is not a live-in parent) is far more important that what sex they are. What does actually put a child at a disadvantage is having only one parent, or having two when one of them (again, live-in or not) exhibits high levels of antisocial behaviour.

Is Mise,

The point was that you overlooked the more important and glaring factual inaccuracies of the article. Whether or not you were nit-picking was a side issue.

Hi there CRAIG MINNS...

Of course your absolutely right ! There are countless number of straight marriages that end in unmitigated disaster, including homicide. Furthermore there are many homosexual relationships that are proven sustainable.

However, you'd have to agree, a homosexual marriage, with all that entails, including the protections and responsibilities that occur, pursuant to the relevant Family Law ACT, doesn't necessarily guarantee a successful Marriage, either for Gay or straight people ?

Craig, the real problems generally emerge when that union or 'marriage' suffers a breakdown. That is where the judiciary who preside over the workings of the Family Court are going to strike their first, intractable problems ? Then there's a matter of enforcement ? Deciding the various merits, of claims, lodged by two former (male) marriage partners, is where the difficulties will arise. Now, because most unions, though some long term, generally don't rely on the strength of statute for enforcement, the financial aspects don't generally arise ?

I don't know Craig, perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree, I hope so ! There's enough trouble, acrimony, human dislocation and emotional hurt now, without a legislated Marriage of Gay people, adding exponentially to it ?

The average cost of a referendum in Ireland is between 17 and 22 million euros.

Yet 6 Irish families per week are being made homeless and nearly 2-thirds of all Irish mortgages are in negative equity. Youth unemployment is 21% and (official) total unemployment is at least 11%. Ireland also has the world's highest level of household debt (runner up: Australia), due almost entirely to the now deflated property boom.

The Irish are still being held to ransom to pay off the 80 billion euro debt racked up by its banksters with full government knowledge - with interest, the debt has now blown out to well into the hundreds of millions. Yet only two bankers have ever been charged (despite several others leaving their posts with 7-8 figure golden handshakes) - and all they got was community service.

One has to ask why Ireland needed to hold such an expensive referendum over two issues (the other being whether to lower the age for presidential candidates from 35 to 21) that are either at best symbolic and at worst empty of any purpose other than a feel-good factor of being the first country in the world to legally recognise same-sex marriage.

Despite the nice outcome, the whole thing was just one giant distraction. The Irish people can feel good about themselves for once - so they don't have to think about how they were so spectacularly screwed over by those whose job it was to protect them.

o sung wu you are "barking up the wrong tree" in thinking we don't already have these court cases through de facto recognition. Marriage might change the legal process and the court but we will not be presenting any new problems that aren't already heard in far greater frequency than our population. But marriage will more clearly identify our relationships. LGBTI parents are already there with other parents anyway. Why would two men divorcing lead to any specific problem? Intractable? (I'm an expert of 3 'divorces') It is stigmatised thinking that produces an exaggerated unrealistic picture of the effects of equality.

"There's enough trouble, acrimony, human dislocation and emotional hurt now, without a legislated Marriage of Gay people, adding exponentially to it ? "
I think you are the one doing the exponential adding and have not though of our hurt.

Hi there ERIC G...

I've not seen you previously on the FORUM ? Welcome.

Obviously you're of the opinion police are apathetic or indifferent to complaints of violence occasioned against Gays ? I guess I can't deny it, after all your commentary must be accurate, otherwise you wouldn't engage in such a verbal fusillade against me and my former vocation ?

You criticism appeared all encompassing in it's analysis ? Your allegation(s) of police apathy is erroneous - Anytime I received a job, vide direction or radio, involving violence, irrespective of who was involved, I immediately responded, depending on the prefix (immediacy) code.

Thereat, my primary duty was to bring the violence to a cessation (if possible). Establish injury status, determine the various perpetrators, if necessary arrest them, transport to station, place them in cellular accommodation, type-up 'short facts', process each offender, and no ERIC G. there's no truth in the rumour we'd give each of em' a good 'tickle-up' with the KB26K ? Each cell contained closed circuit TV coverage (part of the suicide prevention programme for our indigenous clients)

That's about it. Quite seriously, neither me nor anyone in my squad, knowingly discriminated in anyway, whenever dealing with an obviously Gay man or lesbian women. To put it mildly ERIC G., we often didn't have the time to delineate between straight, or gay men or women anyway !

Occasionally, we'd have a request for a change of cell, either because the other occupants we're troubling a gay man, or vice versa, a group of gay's were 'putting the wood' on a straight bloke, and he wanted out !

Just a piece of advice my friend. No doubt some police don't accept homosexuality. It doesn't necessarily follow they'd risk their careers, together with their good name and character, simply because of some deep seated dislike for gays ? Personally, I've done enough years in the job to have seen most things. And that's precisely where I leave it. OK ?

Like the Roman empire, the West is fast heading for extinction.

I don't care what gays and lesbians do, but when we start indulging those who want to be 'married' and enshrining such nonsense in law, it's all over red rover. The mores and traditions of the West are what has made us the best. But, when the time comes, and it will, for a referendum here, it will pass with flying colours, thanks tothe complete lack of morality and common sense of the wacko majority of hedonistic Australians in the younger generations.

Hi snake, in reading the second paragraph of your expansive post, I was taken by your description of "evil"? And thought, what an apt if wordy description of perverted pedophile priests!

Hi Killarney; as usual you have found all the negatives in the article; and indeed, the long overdue outcome!

It must be difficult to live a normal healthy life, with so much unrequited hate coursing through your veins?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty

'It must be difficult to live a normal healthy life, with so much unrequited hate coursing through your veins?'

It appears that all the hate is emanating from you. You savagely attack me over and over in thread after thread. Your intense personal hatred of me is your prerogative. However, does everyone else here have to read all about it in just about every thread I participate in?

For the record, I live in Ireland. Almost everyone I speak to here mirrors the same observations as made in my supposed 'hate-filled' comment. The general consensus is that, while they were happy to vote, and to vote Yes, there is enormous scepticism about why Ireland needed an expensive referendum in these harshest of economic times for the whole country.

So ... most of the Irish population must also have lots of 'unrequited hate' running through their veins. But don't worry about them. Just keep on beating me up every chance you get.

Killarney, I didn't realise you live in Ireland, I guess it explains the handle pretty well!

I'm not sure what your objection to the referendum and its outcome is though. It seems to me to be a piece of unalloyed good news that deserves to be celebrated in and of itself regardless of other aspects of Irish historico-cultural life.

You seem to be of a different view. Do you think you could expand on why in a reasonably dispassionate manner? Your posting style tends to be abrasive and confrontationist, which sometimes makes it hard to grasp serious points that you're trying to make.

I pretty much agree with the points raised in this article.

In particular, I agree with the doctor that Australia won't will be soon blindly following the Irish lead. Australians aren't like sheep who follow a political trend just because its trendy.

@Old Man

Sorry, my opening line should have been “Why should an atheist be expected to support gay marriage?”

@Killarney

Ireland is not the first country to legalise same sex marriage, just the first to hold a referendum on whether to do so. My understanding is that Ireland could only change its marriage laws by referendum because of the way they are they are enshrined in its constitution. In Australia, we could do it by act of Parliament.

At around €5 per head of population, I reckon it was a pretty good deal.

"At around €5 per head of population, I reckon it was a pretty good deal."

Wasn't it even less than that, Rhian?

As there were two referendum questions presented - with that on whether to reduce the minimum age of presidential candidates from 35 to 21 years being defeated with 73.1% voting No and 26.9% voting Yes - the 'pretty good deal' was €2.50.

o sung wu, I think you have done a classic pseudo-rebuttal of my post by pretending I said something different and far easier for you to dismiss with: "Your allegation(s) of police apathy is erroneous".

I said: "Your portrayal of police is no longer acceptable behaviour and they now work within anti-discrimination legislation...". But you make no reference to this cosmic shift in policing in Australia and instead of the big picture of the police force, you bang on about how good you were. The story of 'the good olden days'. You are in denial of the stigma and discrimination police forces now openly admit from recruit training through to the Chief Commissioner. Sorry but you have been out-ranked.

I have been part of this restructure of police culture in VIC as a community rep at recruit training for people with HIV, gay men and mental illness. When I talked to the recruits about my experiences, they had already been taught about the homophobic Tasty Nightclub raid where I and several hundred others sued police and won. Assistant Commissioner Cartwright has been a great support and does not play down past discrimination nor his continuing need to change police culture. The Police made a video about it and so here it is Police not me whose "commentary must be accurate,": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwDLi7WDDmA

The point is, if there is a culture of stigma and discrimination then you don't feel like you are being apathetic.

Secondly, you are essentially saying that in your extensive police experience LGBTI people were unremarkable - and you have seen the worst. But this doesn't fit with your previous posts which claim LGBTI marriage would create new and intractable problems. You are simply of the privileged bullying class and in denial because you can't put yourself in our shoes but insist you should decide for us based on barely hidden hate and an absence of logic. We need to change that culture.

Craig Minns

Another one of my consistently hostile attackers telling me that I am the one with the confrontational manner!

You blatantly ignored Rhrosty's disgusting and personalised attack on ME above, in order to patronisingly point out that I am abrasive.

If you want a 'dispassionate' response from me, then treat me with respect. If not, I'll simply give back as good as I get.

Rhian

I'm simply conveying the overwhelming attitude I've encountered with the Irish people I've spoken to on the subject. And all these people voted Yes, as did I.

If you took a walk around Dublin these days, you will encounter at least half a dozen beggars per 100 metres. It's appalling! Whenever I go to Dublin, I keep plenty of loose change, because I find it too depressing to keep turning them away. They even come up to your car to beg at traffic lights.

I doubt that the Irish government gave a toss about gays. It's nothing new to say that governments have always used 'feel good' distractions to placate the people during desperate times. That's the only point I'm making and I feel it needed to be said.

If people want to twist my words into some gay-bashing diatribe or an attempt to spoil everyone's self-righteousness fun, then twist away. (Not that you're doing that. I'm referring to some others here.)

If you want my respect, act like you deserve it instead of constantly whining.

Funny that it's always everybody and everything else that's wrong...

Hi there ERIC G...

I'm sorry for my delay in responding to your many assertions concerning the treatment some Gays received at the hands of police. I note you're from Victoria, my policing was in NSW, and I guess a copper is a copper is a copper !

When I joined the job, homosexual behaviour was a crime, often punishable by a term of imprisonment, usually at Long Bay. In fact they had a dedicated wing (7 Wing) exclusively to house what was then known, as 'non associates'. You'd agree, a lot has changed since then.

In your writing, I hear (loudly) of your 'hurt' at the hands of police. I can't defend that behaviour, other than to state 'hand on heart' I never did anything untoward to a gay man or woman, that I'd not wish a Court of Law to hear ! I will admit to employing language of a kind, that today, would be clearly unacceptable. Put that down to my youth, peer pressure and my ignorance !

I'm referring to the late sixties and early seventies, and in those days, homosexuality was both illegal and considered immoral by the community at large, as I've stated above. So after years of vilification, even a hatred perpetrated by some coppers, laws were slowly softening and even more slowly, being amended. So there was little wonder police needed some intense behaviour modification and education, in an attempt to teach them to understand and accept, homosexual behaviour was legalised, and no longer considered a crime !

But old prejudices die hard, as you could imagine. Particularly in structured organisations, such as the military, police and prisons amongst others. Trying to change behaviour, attitudes and entrenched opinions, specifically concerning formerly described behaviour as aberrant and immoral, really takes some doing ?

All I can say ERIC G, is extend my own apologies for the intemperate remarks I've previously directed at Gays. Growing old does impart a degree of wisdom, as well as a touch more tolerance towards any human being who's a little different, in one way or another.

Hi David, thanks for your thoughtful, persuasive and kindly put observations. I agree with you

Nice one, Craig.

Complaining about people whining is just another form of whining.

Now that we have confirmed that we have absolutely no respect for one another, please refrain from engaging with me at all.

Cill Airne a chara,

I am in regular touch with people in Ireland and was on the phone last night to my eldest son and some friends.
From my talk with them I'd say that you are spot on in your observations.

Hate to rain on your parade, Dr Dave, but the cat is out already out of the bag on this one. Separation and divorce - deliberately depriving children of one of their biological parents - have been legal for quite some time now. Maybe you missed the memo.

You've really got to feel for the sick and injured of Toowoomba... bad enough to be crook, but to be then have to be treated by a clown like this? I thought doctors were supposed to be intelligent.

Is Mise, a chara. Go raibh maith mile agat!

Despite centuries of British propaganda, especially the perennial Irish joke, the Irish people are not stupid. Docile to an unhealthy degree maybe, but not stupid.

Despite their scepticism about this referendum, they were more than happy to opportunistically rise to the bait to show the world they are not a nation of backward papists.

This thread encapsulates the reality of the same sex “marriage” debacle.
There is no such thing as same sex marriage, as marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
The relationships between homosexuals do not constitute marriage, and they have yet to come up with a word for such “unions”.
The baseless demands for “equality” are made in spite of the fact that everyone has an equal right to marriage, and marriage is between a man and a woman.
If same sex couples want a right to form a socially recognized relationship, then let them specify the nature of such a relationship, and what it is to be called, and seek recognition of it.
Our society need not be re-engineered to meet the demands of a minority. The minority needs to mould itself to the reality of the society of which it wishes to be a part. The hijacking of words that are already taken, like “gay” and “marriage”, needs to stop.

David’s article is quite reasonable, and those attacking it do so, without any rational basis, by puerile name calling, like: “dinosaur”,”fossilized”, “15th century”,”medieval”. There is even scurrilous and baseless criticism of David’s professional ability.Such is the base level of some of those opposed to David’s reason based views.
A J Phillips says he has not seen a valid argument against same sex marriage. He has now, unless he averts his eyes from the above. I have yet to see a valid argument in favour of it.

Leo, I don't doubt his medical ability, I doubt his ability to make ethically-demanding decisions.

Let's face it, Mengele was an excellent doctor...

Leo

I tend to agree with you. The word marriage is taken. Let's call the union by another name but on equal legal terms so both unions enjoy the same prerogatives under the law.

I'm puzzled about all the hoo-ha over recognition of same sex marriage. Is there anyone on this list, or known to anyone on this list, whose traditional heterosexual marriage would suffer to the slightest degree if the term marriage were extended to same sex couples in Australia? Or are those who feel threatened by it freaks who bust a gut to run other people's lives?

Without having a dog in this particular race I am especially delighted by two aspects of the Irish referendum. The first is that it is a kick in the teeth for the Church of Rome. The second is that democracy has spoken on an issue in the only way it can - at the ballot box. We should consider introducing democracy to Australia. If we had had it in 1999 we would not be saddled with a regressive Theft Tax on all purchases of goods and services.

Leo Lane
Your argument is circular. “Same-sex marriage is not possible, because marriage is between a man and a women” begs the question of WHY marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

I am not begging the question, Rhian. It is axiomatic that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

That is how our culture defines it, because that is the way it developed in our communities. .

It is the social structure which supported the couple who produced a family.

Have you consulted any acceptable dictionaries?

Whatever the union is between same sex couples, it is not marriage

Until the definition is changed...

Dictionaries follow usage, they don't determine it. The first great English lexicographer, Samuel Johnson has some words of wisdom you might profit from committing to memory:

"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not."

Leo Lane,

You still haven’t provided anything much in the way of reasoning.

First, you assert that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, then you back that up with nothing more than the same assertion re-worded, saying that the relationships between homosexuals do not constitute marriage (neither do the de facto relationships of heterosexuals, now that you mention it).

You then assert that demands for equality are "baseless", before reminding us that everyone has the right to get married, as if the right to marry who we want (so long as it is consensual, of course) didn't matter.

Then you imply that there is some sort of a need to state the nature of a legally-recognised homosexual relationship (apparently you can't figure that out) and that homosexuals must select a different word, without explaining why that is the case.

Next, you start talking about the "demands" of a minority, seemingly unaware that the majority (and an increasing one at that) support marriage equality, and that that is all that counts.

Finally, you more explicitly claim that the word "marriage" is taken, and suggest that it's actually possible to "hijack" words, oblivious to the fact that there is no such thing as a "taken" word. Nobody owns words and words don't have meaning. Words have usage and we inject meaning into them.

Now this new post of yours follows pretty much the same line: marriage is what it is because it just is.

A stellar effort on both counts, I must say.

Leo Lane why do you think such a defeatist, juvenile, non-argument was worth typing?

If I told you green apples were not actually apples but they are grapples. Would you stop thinking of grapples as apples and would you go to peel one like an orange? When you are hysterical (eg “re-engineered“: what a Nellie) substitute in mundane things to see if your idea is puerile juvenile.

We are not campaigning for same sex marriage because 1) it does not cover all LGBTI 2) we seek a law change that removes the current gender requirement: no one is asking for a law of same sex marriage or any other recognition mechanism. Your lies merely remove you from the argument.

“If same sex couples want a right to form a socially recognized relationship, then let them specify the nature of such a relationship, and what it is to be called, and seek recognition of it.”
Uh-duoh, marriage. We get a glimpse of the moments before the penny dropped. For us it was before we understood homosexuality. From about 8 years old, my family referred to the ‘defect in my mind’ and I would cry myself to sleep wanting and hoping to be treated the same as anyone else – to fall in love, get married and be a family. A life-long fear of not being included.

“The minority needs to mould itself to the reality of the society of which it wishes to be a part.“ Another moment before the penny drops. Equality causes welding and melding not some moulding of a wart or tack on of a specious extra limb. But before you ‘argued’ to set us apart, artificially, by adding to the dictionary.

You accuse us of hijacking ‘gay’ but it was a derogatory name, meaning we took no care, that was thrust upon us by bigots. You haven’t hijacked, borrow, synthesised, learnt or evolved. No you just dumped on us a nascent idea, completely silly that blew your legs off. In the interests of inclusion I implore you to write to all Federal MPs. Please, please.

Leo Lane

For once we agree on something - the meaning of marriage is determined by culture, not some immutable natural law.

So, when most people in a society decide that marriage can now include same-sex couples, it means the cultural definition has shifted. And that is what has happened in Ireland, and is happening in many other societies (ours soon too, I hope)

There doesn't seem to be much dispute world-wide about what marriage is understood to be and as the fundamental building block of the family is seen as the gold standard for raising children.

"United for Human Rights (UHR) is an international, not-for-profit organization dedicated to implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at local, regional, national and international levels. Its membership is comprised of individuals, educators and groups throughout the world who are actively forwarding the knowledge and protection of human rights by and for all Mankind.

Its purpose is to provide human rights educational resources and activities that inform, assist and unite individuals, educators, organizations and governmental bodies in the dissemination and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at every level of society.

United for Human Rights was founded on the Declaration’s 60th anniversary, in the face of continued worldwide abuses which violate the spirit, intent and Articles of this charter of all human rights, the first such document ever ratified by the community of nations. Surveys have found that most people have only a limited understanding of human rights. The Declaration contains the thirty rights that together form the basis of a civilization wherein all people can enjoy the freedoms to which they are entitled, and nations can coexist in peace."

and

"MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Human Right # 16
Marriage and Family
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State."
http://www.humanrights.com/what-are-human-rights/videos/marriage-and-family.html

Gays already have the facility to enter into and publicise their relationships. 'Relationship' is also the chosen and preferred term and concept of the political progressives who are pushing same sex marriage, while being vehemently opposed to that institution. Figure that!

Dear Julian,

<<I'm puzzled about all the hoo-ha over recognition of same sex marriage.>>

Indeed, those who recognise such marriage will continue to do so and those who don't will continue not to. The problem is those who seek recognition for their private relationship from the devil, then the government uses the opportunity to buy their own recognition in return, a marriage from hell!

<<We should consider introducing democracy to Australia.>>

I support, as this would be a step in the right direction, but lets not stop there: the very idea as if it's OK for one person to rule over another, including a majority over minority (as in democracy), is flawed and immoral.

Killarney, you need to stop pretending “people want to twist my words into some gay-bashing diatribe”. You were gay bashing when you wrote “such an expensive referendum … at best symbolic and at worst empty of any purpose other than a feel-good factor..”. Like we’re a waste of space. You might as well have advocated for an in utero diagnostic test so we are all aborted and never get to suffer living.

David
Your numerical list hasn’t had a thorough rebuttal.
1) There is no state-based institutional monogamy and sex is not included nor required ever in the Marriage Act 1961. Sex, polyamory or not, should not change parenting responsibility.

2) Pure racism and religious supremacy – eg gunpowder, ink, silk, glass, pasta, the compass, papermaking, printing. Even our closest relatives the bonobo and chimpanzees have been inventing tools. Judeo-Christian beliefs were not unique inventions of control and bullying either and in stark contrast Buddhism was remarkably kind and compassionate for its era of invention.

3) The slippery slope to male sexual deprivation with no invention to stop them from climbing the walls in frustration? Well I think I could handle many more, perhaps another football team. I’m also qualified to teach about toys.

4) “The unique compact involved in traditional marriage is the undertaking by one party to make raising of children a first priority in the knowledge that the other party will merge financial and other resources…” Ouch! We invented a long time ago the concept of mutual obligation of parents towards their children which has nothing to do with gender or marriage and isn’t mentioned in the Marriage Act, just as having children or not is not mentioned. But marriage makes it easier to ensure men don’t neglect their children as way too many are.

David you might have the upgrades for atheism but your ideas on marriage are locked in the past on religious morality, they don’t represent today and are full of misogyny.

o sung wu another long brag about your past and an apology – thanks – but no re-cast of your bigoted claims.

//Let's face it, Mengele was an excellent doctor...//

He really wasn't, Craig. An excellent surgeon perhaps, but a failure as a doctor.

//It is axiomatic that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.//

No it isn't. An axiom is a premise so evident that it is accepted by everyone without controversy. If you really think there is no controversy over this premise then I pity the village that is currently missing its idiot.

Or maybe this forum is the village... in which case you can only be the apprentice idiot to runner.

ERIC G...

What precisely do mean by; '...my long brag about my past, and an apology...' I'll not accept any sort of rebuke from you pal ! Who in hell do you think you are ? The moral guardian of how we all should think ! Are we heterosexuals now mandated to 'tip toe' meekly around any reference to homosexuals, and their behaviour, if you think that mate, you've got another thing coming !

As a token of my own goodwill, I attempted to offer you a brief synopsis of the historical background concerning an entrenched belief system, held by some police back in the sixties, seventies and eighties ? And what do you do, respond sarcastically, and attempt to pitch it back in my face, like some immature smart arse!

It's little wonder why you personally have attracted so much derision and contempt, as you've (allegedly) claimed, as evidenced by your absurd petty confrontational attitude !

I'll not attempt to recount the number of occasions where I've placed my own physical welfare on the line, in order to safely extract some poor homosexual bloke, who was copping a real kickin' in the back toilets of a well known Gay pub, in Oxford Street Sydney !

For what it's worth, my blinkered, parochial friend, remember 'it takes two hands to clap' !

Onthebeach that was blatant lies:
"Gays already have the facility to enter into and publicise their relationships. 'Relationship' is also the chosen and preferred term and concept of the political progressives who are pushing same sex marriage, while being vehemently opposed to that institution. Figure that!"

Tip: if it sounds silly and downright daft, then you are more than likely the source of the silliness.

We are not even pushing for same-sex marriage. Our lobby is called Australian Marriage Equality. And equality is our chief concept, ie our "chosen and preferred terms" are universal not LGBTI specific. "Vehemently opposed" - are you bonkers? You only pasted verbosely about human rights because you couldn’t see us in it. We are in #16.3 as family and it is unnatural and immoral to jettison us from family or that of our partners/in laws.

But I went to investigate why you didn't quote the United Nations or its affiliates directly. Well surprise, slightly, your website does not ever mention sexuality, gender, intersex, homosexual, lesbian or transgender. They tell and sell the 'history' of human rights without including us, our experience of violence and death, and no mention of the Yogyakarta Principles. Why worry about minor rights like marriage and voting if some of your family do not have the right to have been born or to safety?

These are people who cannot discern what it is to be human. But they knew better than to declare who they are, which country they are from or to even have a Wikipedia entry. They love freedom of privacy. More than they like moral responsibility.

Onthebeach did you stumbled upon the web site not knowing they were homophobes and transphobes? Your comment was not stumbled upon stupidity, it was the product of hate which prevent you from seeing that is was utter nonsense to claim there was not “much dispute world-wide about what marriage is understood to be”. I need your help for equality: What could I say against you that would be as equally silly? Sorry I’ve a tangle of neurons.

That is right , Craig, but at the moment, in Australia, marriage is defined by legislation:
“Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”
A J Phillips, you really are dense. What reasoning do you think is required for an axiom, which is the established starting point, a self evident fact. Marriage, in our culture, evolved to be a union between a man and a woman, and remains so. It is not changed by public opinion, unless that opinion brings about legislative change.
Can you tell me when marriage was ever an institution for the union of two people of the same sex?
If I could understand your post, Eric G, I would attempt a reply, as you have addressed yourself to me, and appear to be complaining about something

Toni Lavis, I missed your quaint little post, asserting that there was some controversy over marriage being between a man and a woman.
We are talking about our culture, so just let us know when and by whom it was asserted otherwise, and between what parties other than a man and a woman a marriage was said to occur.

You’re not too bright yourself, Leo Lane.

<<What reasoning do you think is required for an axiom, which is the established starting point, a self evident fact.>>

The idea that marriage can only be between man and a woman is not axiomatic. Toni Lavis already explained this, doesn't it?

The “starting point” doesn’t have to be “established” either. It's just a starting point for reasoning. You are committing the equivocation fallacy here.

So there goes your next line of reasoning to Toni Lavis a few moments ago.

<<Marriage, in our culture, evolved to be a union between a man and a woman, and remains so.>>

“Evolved”? So you admit that it was once something else then. So if its current form is so-o-o-o axiomatic, why didn’t it start that way?

<<It is not changed by public opinion, unless that opinion brings about legislative change.>>

So I take it, then, that when the legislation inevitably changes, the broader definition will be the new axiom and you will, therefore, accept it?

Looks like you have nothing to worry about then.

<<Can you tell me when marriage was ever an institution for the union of two people of the same sex?>>

Not off the top of my head. What difference would it make either way? You wouldn’t be committing the argumentum ad antiquitatem here, would you?

You are conflating three ideas here and switching between the three of them when it's convenient:
-that heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic because it's just so self-evident that that's the way it should be;
-that heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic because axioms as "starting points" are necessarily "established" starting points;
-that heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic because it's self-evident that that's what the current legislation says.

You have no idea of what it is that you're arguing, do you? You're just making it up as you go now.

Yeah, great logic Leo. Augustus de Morgan has got nothing on you. I'm off to re-read Elements. Euclid was a bloke who knew his axiom from his elbow.

o sung wu: "As a token of my own goodwill, I attempted to offer you a brief synopsis of the historical background concerning an entrenched belief system, held by some police back in the sixties, seventies and eighties ?" Only after you denied it totally and my post about police recruit training and the police video (yes that was me) made it too embarrassing for you not to insist you were a good cop. Well a good cop would take responsibility for today’s mistakes first. You attacked me, my people and our future and then lied about it. Your rebuke of me as an immature smart-arse is nothing for the fundamental character flaws that I point to in your comments.

Show some real goodwill, not a token, and explain why your comments on LGBTI marriage are true and not hateful. A token of your goodwill would be to not use gay or same-sex because that leads to lies. Your quotes:
"Such relationships do indeed attract additional problems, specific to their unique nature. Therefore requiring a much greater commitment for success. Making it just that much harder to inculcate those very necessary values and normal living skills, that children really need, in order to progress safely and successfully through their entire lives."
"How will the Family Law Court deal with the many dissimilarities in an acrimonious divorce ?"
"Fresh complications for police too, who're required to oversee the complexities associated with a variation of domestic violence ?"
"There's enough trouble, acrimony, human dislocation and emotional hurt now, without a legislated Marriage of Gay people, adding exponentially to it ?"
I will make it easy for you, forget the plurals and just give us one good example for each.

"I'll not accept any sort of rebuke from you pal ! Who in hell do you think you are ?" I am one of the people who has your foot in my guts. You’re just another hiding abuser, flotsam from last century. I am Eric Glare and I am not subjugating myself and my wellbeing so you can be comfortable with your bigotry.

The pissing contest continues, the floors are awash and it's over the sides of people's shoes. Before everyone is drowning in piddle, I'll repeat the question, refined for extra precision:

Who in this thread, or known about to anyone in this thread, is personally disadvantaged by recognition by the law of the land of relationships between any two autonomous adults whatsoever, subject to the provisions now applying to heterosexual marriage, as legal marriage?

I am suggesting that the only basis for claiming affront or disadvantage is control freakery, a feeling of threat at the prospect of the law accepting the way other people arrange their own personal lives - (gasp, rattle, shudder) DIFFERENT people.

Dear Julian,

<<Who in this thread, or known about to anyone in this thread, is personally disadvantaged by recognition by the law of the land of relationships between any two autonomous adults whatsoever>>

Every tax payer.

Expanding the government function called "marriage" (and its accompanying function called "divorce") to include even more people than now, means more public-servants eating off my table. It also means even more "bought" people who would always vote to keep this system of government in place because they and their families wouldn't part from this regular income. Instead, this function should be eliminated altogether, sending home a wave of no-gooder public-servants. Those who want to get "married", whatever it means to them, can still do it privately with the help of their chosen celebrants, priests or anyone else they respect.

ERIC G...

You state inter alia, '...a good cop would take responsibility for today mistakes first...' or similar language ? Similarly, a good advocate for Gay rights would take responsibility for attributing false accusations concerning an individual's character, when he knows absolutely nothing of that person ?

ERIC as an advocate for Gay rights - both your attitude and confrontational style does you no credit nor especially your cause. Simple as that. I told you I have no knowledge of VICPOL, I was with NSWPOL. Your training video, and everything else you claim was initiated by you under the aegis of VICPOL, is something of which I'm unaware, therefore of no interest to me ! By way of comment, you no doubt would've been a real 'hit' with police recruits, with that combative attitude of yours ?

You further assertions that 'I' have my foot in your guts...? How so ? Are you so bitter, and so emotionally rancorous about how homosexual males were treated (not only by police, but by the entire community) up until about the middle of the last century, your judgement is so clouded and warped you can longer advance your argument without it being liberally veneered with pure enmity and suspicion ! Is that you ERIC G ?

You SHOULD consider one thing my indignant friend...!

You cannot:- 'legislate', 'threaten', 'terrorise' or by any other method coerce, an individual into either 'liking' or 'accepting' you or your way of life.

The only successful method, is by amicable persuasion ? The same applies to racism, the only successful way to reach people is by amicable or cooperative persuasion.

Speaking with this well known Reverend, from some Pentecostal religion, years ago now. Anyway I enquired of him, why was it that his church's policy is to speak against homosexual practices, when he personally welcomed them into his church ? His reply was both simple and direct (you can make of this as you will?), he said, the homosexual act itself is against the law of God and more particularly, and of nature ?

Eric G,

You are apparently unaware that the de facto provisions (definition broadened and as well referred to as 'relationships') were extended to homosexual (same sex) relationships. See here,

https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/HumanRights/Pages/Samesexreforms.aspx

and here,

https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/recognition-of-same-sex-relationships

Maybe you need to ask a bureaucrat or lawyer because you may be in a (same sex) 'relationship' without knowing it, or intending it to be so. Like heterosexuals, homosexuals no longer choose, the State decides for them and you may be obliged to prove otherwise.

Have a look at the very broad and murky definition of same sex relationship.

. Toni Lavis made the smart-alec, assertion in relation to my statement that marriage being the union of a man and a woman is axiomatic, “ No it isn't. An axiom is a premise so evident that it is accepted by everyone without controversy. If you really think there is no controversy over this premise then I pity the village that is currently missing its idiot.” Toni demonstrated that he had made a false assertion, by his failure to answer my query,” let us know when and by whom it was asserted otherwise, and between what parties other than a man and a woman a marriage was said to occur”. Lavis' answer was:"Not off the top of my head"
AJPhillips relied on Lavis’ lie to back his baseless criticism, and when he realised he was talking nonsense, accused me of not knowing what I was talking about.
What a pair of disingenuous losers!
It is axiomatic that marriage is between a man and a woman, so to talk about same sex marriage is pure nonsense, as is talk about “marriage equality”

Leo Lane,

It seems you’re getting Toni Lavis and I mixed up a bit…

<<Toni demonstrated that he had made a false assertion, by his failure to answer my query,” let us know when and by whom it was asserted otherwise, and between what parties other than a man and a woman a marriage was said to occur”. Lavis' answer was:"Not off the top of my head">>

But either way, in claiming this, you demonstrate that you still don’t understand why your fallacy of equivocation is an equivocation. Do you realise that when axioms are described as “starting points”, it’s in reference to a starting point for reasoning; it does not refer to the status quo? And even if it did, it would be a pretty stupid term to use given that even you acknowledge that the current form of marriage evolved from something else.

I also asked you what difference it would make if same-sex marriage had never existed before - giving you a chance to demonstrate that your fallacious thinking at least helped you to fluke the right answer - and still no word on that. You’re just ducking a weaving now.

<<AJPhillips relied on Lavis’ lie to back his baseless criticism...>>

Firstly, you haven’t demonstrated that what Toni Lavis said was wrong, let alone a “lie”. Secondly, I didn’t rely on anything; I already understood what axioms were. Here’s a couple of definitions for you:

Axiomatic: http://bfy.tw/3Fi
Axiom: http://bfy.tw/3Fj

<<What a pair of disingenuous losers!>>

Ah, that ad hominem. So that makes three fallacies. You’re doing well. Just waiting on the Appeal to Nature now.

<<It is axiomatic that marriage is between a man and a woman, so to talk about same sex marriage is pure nonsense...>>

But according to you, it won’t be once it's legislated. So there’s nothing to worry about.

Or are we now talking about the axiomatic state that refers to “starting points” that have nothing to do with reasoning, and aren’t actually starting points at all?

You’re gonna have to be a little less vague, Leo. I’m not a flippin’ mind reader.

Forgetful, aren’t you AJ? Your words were:” Toni Lavis already explained this, doesn't it?” You were a bit muddled in your wording, but I took it to mean that you were relying on Lavis’ lie. Tell me if it is not what you meant, if you do have any idea of what you meant.
You have some difficulty understanding that it is axiomatic that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is why I asked you” Can you tell me when marriage was ever an institution for the union of two people of the same sex?”. You did not reply, because you do not wish to confirm my statement by your answer.
There is a solution, to your quandary.You can do what Toni Lavis did; make one last stupid remark, and disappear from the thread

Leo Lane,

I can assure you that it’s not me who’s being forgetful here.

<<Your words were:” Toni Lavis already explained this, doesn't it?”>>

Correct. Although the “doesn’t it?” was a leftover from a deletion. There was muddled-ness.

<<...I took it to mean that you were relying on Lavis’ lie. Tell me if it is not what you meant...>>

Well, you’re yet to demonstrate that it was a lie; but otherwise, you’re on track so far.

<<You have some difficulty understanding that it is axiomatic that marriage is between a man and a woman.>>

Again, this depends on what you mean exactly. You’ve discussed three different lines of reasoning in regards to the axiomatic. I even summarised them neatly, one after the other, a couple of posts ago if you need reminding of what they were so that you can decide which one you want to go with once and for all.

<<That is why I asked you” Can you tell me when marriage was ever an institution for the union of two people of the same sex?”.

Yes, and you still haven’t explained the connection. Or are you saying that you’ll go with the second axiom? Do you not understand what equivocation is?

<<You did not reply, because you do not wish to confirm my statement by your answer.>>

Erm, yeah, I did reply. You even mistook my answer for being Toni Lavis’s.

<<There is a solution, to your quandary. You can do what Toni Lavis did; make one last stupid remark, and disappear from the thread>>

You would like that, wouldn’t you? It would make you feel like you were right all along and it would get you out of this hole you’ve dug yourself into.

Well, I’m not going anywhere too soon. I’m having too much fun at the moment, and I’m not exactly known for tiring quickly either. I had a debate on OLO that went for eight months once, so we may as well start being nicer to each other.

Eric G

'Killarney ... You were gay bashing when you wrote “such an expensive referendum … at best symbolic and at worst empty of any purpose other than a feel-good factor..'.

Yep! You're onto me.

I just woke up one morning and decided 'Gee willikers, I just wanna bash gays. Hand me that baseball bat.'

Forget nuance. Forget Irish politics.

At the time of the referendum, the so-called banking inquiry was in full swing. No prizes for guessing that absolutely no one will be charged, despite millions spent that Ireland cannot afford. Great distraction.

And within one day of the referendum, the government announced it was selling off Aer Lingus - a company that has enormous symbolic value to Irish people and is majorly efficient and profitable - to a Qatar-based conglomerate that also owns British Airways, for a disgusting bargain basement price. Irish MPs were given a massively generous 2-day period to debate and research the issue before voting - which, according to party lines is a slam-dunk.

But the media is still basking in the wonderful referendum result. Another great distraction for the Irish people who are overwhelmingly against the sale.

Get my drift?

And by the way ... did you happen to notice from my previous comments that I voted Yes?

No matter. Any excuse to bully and badger anyone that diverges from the 'oh, isn't this the greatest progressive shift of all time' paradigm is fair game.

I'd rather have a referendum to get rid of marriage altogether.

It's archaic and redundant, conceived in a time when protection of property and inheritance rights, as being passed down through the male line, was all-important. Marriage completely deprived women of any status other than as the wife of their husband and rendered children the chattels of their parents.

All the supposed romantic and symbolic value of marriage was propagandised by the established order - Church, State, monarchy - to cement its role as supposedly fundamental to society.

In the modern era, civil law covers virtually every property and financial protection that marriage is supposed to provide. If anything, marriage overly complicates and exacerbates separation and divorce procedures.

Why gay people want to buy into this crap is beyond me.

(Disclaimer: I've been happily married for 25 years. I would have been just as happy to have lived these last 25 years without a marriage certificate.)

Yada yada patriarchy

Yada yada power struggle

yada yada control

yada yada yawn...

I wonder whether your "husband", if he exists, which seems unlikely given your previous posting history, thinks he's happy. Seems even less likely really.

//Lavis' answer was:"Not off the top of my head"//

No it wasn't. You're entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts. No wonder your arguments are so lousy.

I asked whether “ marriage was ever an institution for the union of two people of the same sex?”.

Toni Lavis:“Yes, and you still haven’t explained the connection”.

Simple enough.You might agree that Marriage is a recognised institution.
You say that there is controversy about it being between a man and a woman, but you will not say what the controversy is.
The answer to my question might throw some light on what the controversy is, or is not. You are right, “not off the top of my head” was Phillips answer. You have not answered at all, understandably, and no doubt never will.As with what the controversy is,that you assert, you do not have a clue.

Leo Lane,

It doesn’t sound like you know who you’re talking to or when.

<<I asked whether “ marriage was ever an institution for the union of two people of the same sex?”.>>

Correct.

<<Toni Lavis:“Yes, and you still haven’t explained the connection”.>>

No, that was me.

<<Simple enough.You might agree that Marriage is a recognised institution.>>

Yes, I don’t think anyone could argue that marriage is not a recognised institution.

<<You say that there is controversy about it being between a man and a woman, but you will not say what the controversy is.>>

Toni Lavis alluded to a controversy regarding whether or not marriage can ONLY be between a man and a woman, but I don’t think you’ve asked him what that controversy is yet.

What difference does it make anyway? The mere existence of one is enough to throw your 'axiom' claim into serious doubt.

<<The answer to my question might throw some light on what the controversy is, or is not. >>

Okay, so you agree that a controversy exists - discrediting your 'axiom' claim - now you want to know what it is.

It's whether or not people of the same sex should be allowed to get married.

So according to you, there is no controversy because marriage has never include same sex couples.

Ri-i-i-i-ght.

<<You are right, “not off the top of my head” was Phillips answer.>>

Yes, Toni Lavis was right. I also alerted you to the fact.

<<You have not answered at all, understandably, and no doubt never will.>>

Are you talking to me or Toni Lavis now? Let’s say the answer is a definitive, “No, same-sex marriage has never existed in the past”, what difference does it make to your axioms or these controversies you’re now talking about...

<<As with what the controversy is,that you assert, you do not have a clue.>>

I’m not dealing with someone who’s all there upstairs, am I? Please tell me if there is a reason for your constant confusion. I left a discussion once because I found out the person had Alzheimer's.

Yes, AJ, you continue to avoid the point I have made, which is that marriage being a union between a man and a woman is axiomatic.
Lavis asserted, but was unable to give any evidence of a controversy as a basis to show that marriage being a union between a man and a woman was not axiomatic

All very straightforward, which is why you have to work so hard in your attempt to complicate it
Despite your hard work to confuse the issue, do not delude yourself that it is me who is confused. Your efforts have paid off on yourself, but you may still be able to grasp the simple concept that it is axiomatic that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.
There is no controversy, over the meaning of the term and no rational basis for contradiction of that meaning.

//Toni Lavis:“Yes, and you still haven’t explained the connection”.//

Really, Leo? What did I just say to you in my last post about concocting your own facts? If you're not going to make a proper effort I don't know why you bother.

//Lavis asserted, but was unable to give any evidence of a controversy as a basis to show that marriage being a union between a man and a woman was not axiomatic//

If it was non-controversial we wouldn't be having this 'argument'.
If it was axiomatic we wouldn't be having this 'argument'.
We are having this argument. What more evidence do you require?

In the our western world we have no option but to now accept same sex marriage.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals have been thrust upon us since the 1930. As you read this you do not realise what life would be like without being effected by these chemicals. There in the air, water and food supply. The European Union Committee on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals has identified over 700 chemicals in the general populous which interfere with your hormones. In the first trimester of pregnancy the sex is determined by exposure of sex based hormones. If the exposure of the foetus to these hormones are interfered with during the first trimester, then in the extreme sex may be indeterminate or mixed. The number of sex reassignments done today compared to any time in the past is breath taking. This is not a natural progression of the human species. This simply the effects of these chemicals on people. For example DEHP (diethylhexyl phthalate - used to soften plastic(plasticiser)) is basically an oestrogen hormone. It directly correlates to breast, overian and prostate cancer. A metabolised sub struct of this chemical stops the conversion of cholesterol to testosterone in the testis and post menopause ovaries in females. It directly correlates to the cardiovascular risk in males and post menopausal females. There also dumbing us down. Intelligence has been linked in the developing foetus to exposure to a specific level of testosterone. Too much or too little interferers with intelligence formation. DEHP also damages the DNA/RNA. This only happens in females and persists for at least two generations. This is a profile of but one of the 700.
Same sex marriage is the very least of our problems. This all may be a moot point. Research the name Prof John Schindler then see https://twitter.com/20committee/status/601131464202260480

//There in the air, water and food supply.//
//In the first trimester of pregnancy the sex is determined by exposure of sex based hormones.//
//This is not a natural progression of the human species. This simply the effects of these chemicals on people.//
//It directly correlates to breast, overian and prostate cancer.//
//There also dumbing us down.//
//Too much or too little interferers with intelligence formation.//

Yeah, so it would seem. Have you thought about minimising your exposure to these chemicals until you can tell the difference between they're and there?

Leo Lane,

Of course it is self-evident and unquestionable (i.e. axiomatic) that a marriage is currently a union between a man and a woman only.

<<...you continue to avoid the point I have made, which is that marriage being a union between a man and a woman is axiomatic.>>

But that hasn't been what you've been arguing now, has it? You were arguing that it can only ever be this way (Why would you bother commenting otherwise? To state the bleeding obvious?). Then, when questioned why this was the case, you hid behind axioms the same way Christians do to avoid justifying an extraordinary belief, or to make it sound as though all beliefs are on equally shaky ground.

Now that it has been pointed out to you how stupid it was to hide behind axioms like that, you try to make it sound like all you’ve been trying to do this whole time was point out that a marriage is currently a union between a man only.

Now, what are your reasons as to why marriage can NEVER be between two members of the same sex?

Hi there JUST GIVE ME ALL THE FACTS...

What you said at the beginning of your thread, that's what really troubles me personally ? You stated inter alia '...in (the)sic our western world we have no option but to now accept Gay marriage...' ? We're forever being told that homosexual behaviour, or homosexuals are in the minority, why then do we 'have' to accept Gay marriage ?

I have no problem accepting the reality of homosexuality, and now it's been completely decriminalised, and protective measures and laws concerning, discrimination etc., are now in place to afford them equal protection under the law as anybody else, and I fully endorse it. But to 'accept' as if it's already been mandated, that's what concerns me ?

AJ asks: “ why marriage can NEVER be between two members of the same sex?”
Because it is axiomatic that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Whatever a same sex relationship might be, it is not a marriage.
If the meaning of the word “marriage” is corrupted by future legislation, then it may be possible to refer to same sex “marriage”, because of the corruption of the word. It will be like “climate change” no longer meaning “climate change” because of the IPCC’s weasel-worded redefinition of the term to mean “climate change as a result of human activity”. Marriage would then no longer mean marriage, in its true sense, because of such a redefinition

Okay then, Leo Lane. So we weren’t talking at cross purposes as I suspected we were before, and all my questions remain relevant and more importantly, unanswered (including how heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic when it is clearly not self-evident and unquestionable to everyone). Furthermore, all my answers to your questions were being deliberately ignored while you sat there and claimed that I was not answering them.

Acting like a geriatric that has lost their marbles when you get caught shoplifting may work with the police, but it’s not going to work here.

Interesting to note that you have ignored Toni Lavis’s most recent and very direct answers to you too. No doubt you will claim later that he still won’t answer your questions.

So, Leo Lane, how about you start answering my questions? Then we can proceed from there. If heterosexual-only marriage were so axiomatic, then answering them should be no problem at all.

Nice throw-away line regarding climate change there. Now that you've you brought it up, though, I’d have to say that I'm glad that someone like yourself is in the denialist camp. You’re a good example of the calibre of debaters on that topic that I know of. I mean, I was talkin’ to me mate, Simmo, down the pub the other day an’ I asked ‘im what he thought about this global warmin’ stuff, an’ he reckons it’s all a loada crap.

Craig

Your last post to me was straight from the gutter. Nasty, spiteful, putrid and deeply personal. Have you stooped so low that you think that anyone with a feminist opinion is fair game for such filthy personal abuse?

Also, your hatred is for me. So leave my husband out of your spiteful rants. He doesn't deserve it.

//It will be like “climate change” no longer meaning “climate change”//

No, 'climate change' still means 'change in climate' without reference to causal factors. What you're thinking of is referred to as 'anthropogenic climate change'. But anthropogenic is a big word, so I can see why it would give you trouble.

O Sung Wu, I think the point that is being made is that if the law is out of step with the needs of society, then it should most definitely be accepted that the law needs to be changed.

Since there is good evidence that homosexuality is a natural part of the spectrum of human sexuality, then it is not something that the law needs to concern itself with in any special way. Therefore, if a law applies to some aspect of heterosexual relationships, there is no prima facie reason it should not apply equally to homosexual ones.

There may be some consequentialist type of argument made, but it would have to have some strong evidence to support it. I haven't seen anyone present such an argument yet, here or elsewhere.

Killarney, you're quite right, my last post was less than charitable and I apologise. I find you hard to like.

HI there CRAIG MINNS...

Thank you for your clarification on this still very convoluted subject, but I must be dim, compared to many others on this Site, I still can't see any real need or a necessity, other than creating 'precise equality' (by being married) for homosexuals ?

Still I'm an old bloke now, so whatever I think is immaterial. As there's now a wave of contemporary thinking permeating throughout society, suggesting this anomaly be addressed, and appropriate legislative amendments be made, in order that homosexual people may 'marry' with all the legality, that normally accompanies marriage ?

Thank you CRAIG.

The Irish have come to a democratic decision of the people - the actual people – of the nation to introduce marriage equality into the nation’s legal framework. They have applied the only known mechanism to this, a referendum. Yet even Ireland is not a democracy. The people were granted this power by the pollies, and there are voices raised against it even from among those who don’t oppose the measure – there are better things to spend $20 million on than a referendum. It’s always some excuse to oppose democracy, even where there’s a democratic vote on an actual issue (not just on which sellout crooks should govern the country on behalf of their party’s financial and political sponsors).

In WA we’ve had numerous referenda that have said a clear NO to daylight saving only to find it countermanded by the pollies on behalf of the big end of town. We even had a vote in which we said NO to Sunday trading by Coles/Woolies which was brushed aside by the bought pollies. The Irish people have had no say in multi-billion dollar decisions which have led to mass impoverishment (deceitfully called “austerity”) to which Killarney has drawn attention while deploring the footling $20 million spent on the referendum. In Australia we are spending $125 million EACH on F35 strike fighters without a by-your-leave from the people. Six times what the Irish referendum cost. We are being dragged by the bent pollies and mandarins into a TPP agreement which will cancel even national (let alone democratic) control of our own laws. All without the permission of the people.

We need a referendum (not just a deal among pollies) on legal recognition of equality in marriage. We need referenda also on many other issues committing our nation. We are ill-served by government of the people by the pollies and mandarins for those who buy them.

Hi O Sung Wu,
There are many laws that exist without any unambiguous necessity being demonstrated. Laws, after all, are the product of politics rather than the inevitable process of rigorous application of rationality.

However, once a law exists, then its application is dependent on its being able to be applied within a rational framework and any gaps that might be found in that framework weaken the authoritative strength of the law. As a working copper you must have seen many laws that were mostly honoured in the breach.

Homosexuality isn't something new, it's been around for at least several thousand years that we know of and it seems reasonable to assume that it goes back much further. There may well be very good evolutionarily adaptive reasons that some part of the population is homosexual, although that probably drifts away from the subject of this thread.

It's also true that with age comes a little less flexibility of thought and that often shows up as conservatism of viewpoint. As we get older, we like to be able to rely on some veritudes, rather than having to constantly worry about the latest New Big Thing. This may also have had some evolutionary adaptive value for our human ancestors, acting as a brake on adventurous young people doing things that were likely to have bad consequences and I'm sure that still applies.

However, to the extent that the species has been able to advance, it is because at times the young people have overridden their conservatively cautious seniors.

Those silly old buggers (in Bob Hawke's famous words) who demand that the world come to a stop to suit their fearful inability to keep up with change, of whom there are a few here, are inevitably going to be ignored. Those who can accept that change is a needful thing and help guide it are vital. The wisdom of age and the enthusiastic passions of youth are a powerful combination.

A quote from AJPhillips: “Of course it is self-evident and unquestionable (i.e. axiomatic) that a marriage is currently a union between a man and a woman only.”
Subsequent quote from AJPhillips:” my questions remain relevant and more importantly, unanswered (including how heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic when it is clearly not self-evident and unquestionable to everyone). “
There is evidence of you undergoing an addle-brained state there, but I will ask you, in case you are capable of comprehending, where there is any controversy about the meaning of the term “marriage”. Controversy about the institution of marriage itself is irrelevant.
I note the ignorant and baseless assertion that I am a "denier”
What am I denying? Refer me to the science which shows any measurable effect on climate by human emissions.
I am a truth and science supporting realist on climate. The science shows that the human effect is trivial, and not measurable.
The fraud backing IPCC asserts that it is 94% certain that human emissions cause global warming, but cannot explain why all of the science shows otherwise.
Toni Lavis, do you never check on facts before you reply, to avoid talking nonsense? The rat-cunning definition of climate change by the IPCC, caused a lot of the confusion and lies which abound in the climate fraud, but it is gratifying to note that its definition also caused the IPCC some of the difficulty it so richly deserves.

From a report on “Misdefining at the IPCC”:
“gridlock has resulted in large part from the basic design of the FCCC, which at its foundation is based on a highly restricted definition of ‘‘climate change’’ focused only on changes in climate that result from greenhouse gas forcing of the climate system. This restricted definition may make sense from some abstract, theoretical perspective, but it has also set the stage for inaction in the real world of politics and policy”
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1841-2004.10.pdf

Hi again CRAIG MINNS...

Bloody hell mate you can read me like a book ! Concerning your thoughts on the praxis of our laws, laws are only an expression of society's demands. The framing of which rely exclusively on our democratic process of jurisprudence, which as you would know is merely the scientific synthesis of the essential principles of our entire legal system.

Indeed you're correct when you say, police occasionally need to 'backfill' a charge or charges, in substantiating the criminal proofs of an offence, should the DPP consider the available evidence lacks the necessary strength to endure exhaustive legal enquiry ?

Craig, you're again correct when you suggest, as we age we become more entrenched, more constrained and less flexible in our views and opinions. We seem to lose the ability to clearly see another's point of view, especially in such a complicated discussion as homosexual marriage ? In less than a month I'll turn 76, therefore I'll clearly fall within that exclusive demographic of 'muddled' partisans. An entirely inflexible group of 'oldies' ?

Notwithstanding, I would however put it to you (with respect) the only positive virtue or outcome that necessarily accompanies aging, is that of experience ? Experience of a kind that may assist younger people from repeating the same mistakes that we, of my generation have made. That is of course, they're prepared to listen ?

There are four issues on which the government remains woefully out of touch with the Australian people – same sex marriage, voluntary assisted euthanasia, abortion on demand (which, contrary to prevailing belief, is still a crime on the statute books) and the legalisation of marijuana.

Poll after poll registers between 65% and 90% support to legalise (and thus, regulate) all these issues.

For reasons that continue to defy comprehension, successive Australian governments continue to fly in the face of popular (aka ‘democratic’) opinion. No doubt, they are waiting for their political masters (the US) to give them the green light to pass these pesky democratic laws.

The US is the major controller of Western public opinion, foreign policy, socio-political practice and the execution of so-called Western ‘democracy’. However, it is unfortunately captive to reactionary backward social policies, that spring from its strong puritan, militaristic and slave-trading traditions.

What a pity we can’t send the US packing and settle these issues with a singular referendum on all these issues once and for all.

Eeeew! Too democratic by far!

Craig

It is a matter of complete indifference to me whether you 'like' me or not.

Just STOP ATTACKING me! Repeat. STOP ATTACKING me!

I know feminist commentary triggers extremely hostile reactions and that every time I make a feminist comment, I leave myself wide open to abuse. However, this does not excuse the disproportionate level of abuse I receive from you and others on OLO.

Killarney, stop the hysterical victim-playing, you constantly attack me and others. You're mostly a rather ineffective troll.

I offered you an apology, but you lack the grace and good manners to accept. No worries, I withdraw it.

Nitwit.

Emperor Julian

Agree with all your points. Specifically, referendums are of democratic use only when they vote according to what is wanted by the powers that be. Poor old WA has had no less than four daylight saving referendums to effect the vote that Perth-Sydney boardrooms want.

No doubt, there will be more DS referendums until the WA public 'gets it right'.

In 2008, an Irish referendum rejected the Lisbon Treaty, which would have effectively turned over Irish national sovereignty to Brussels.

No matter. The people were orderd back to the polls in 2009 to supply the vote that Brussels wanted. This was backed up by a massive Irish media blitz based on fear and intimidation that God would strike Ireland dead if they persisted with this silly belief that the Irish people should control their own destiny.

Brussels won.

I'm not sure why the Western powers that be (i.e. the US-NATO) are so gung-ho to enforce same-sex marriage at this point in time. I can't help but assume it's mainly for distraction purposes.

Craig

Oh, dear. The bully's lament: 'Stop being a victim'.

No problem, Craig. I'll stop 'being a victim' when I stop being victimised

Killarney, the bully around this site is you and like all bullies, as soon as you are confronted you weakly claim victim status.

You are not worth respect and you are most assuredly not any kind of victim. You're just a weak-principled pissant troll who doesn't have enough backbone to even use your real name when spewing your vitriol.

Feminist? Don't make me laugh: you're simply a noisome heckler.

California is a state of about 38 million people – much bigger than Australia or Ireland – and on a state level it is democratic, unlike Australia. There are set procedures for any significant-enough number to call a referendum on whatever issue they choose, and the results are binding. The Californians could be of great assistance to Australia in designing appropriate protocols for binding citizen-initiated referenda (BCIR).

Before we drown from the pissing contests, I’d like to pass on what a rellie has submitted to the The West Australian in response to a couple of homophobes recoiling in horror over the Irish people’s effrontery. I’ll leave out the names until the editors have decided whether to print it.

“[... and ...] (Letters 28/05/15) are worried that same-sex marriage will open the door to a breakdown of law and order, financial losses, polygamy, child marriage and incest. These penetrating predictions, however, just don’t go far enough! Should same-sex marriage be introduced into this country I foresee a dramatic decline in our weather – including droughts, floods, plagues of blood-sucking frogs and plagues of new-age vacuum cleaner salesmen; not to mention a deterioration in the quality of breakfast cereal. There’ll be an increasing number of asylum seekers too, as thousands upon thousands of frustrated gay refugees, all gaily dressed in bridal gowns and waving pink fluffy handbags, arrive upon our shores.”

I fear he forgot to mention the direst result of all – re-election of an Abbott-Hockey government.

Leo Lane,

<<There is evidence of you undergoing an addle-brained state there,...>>

How do you figure that? All I said is that the current definition of marriage, that being the union between a man and a woman only, is unquestionable. That does not contradict any of the questions that you’re desperately trying to avoid answering. You, on the other hand, are confusing two concepts: (i) the definition of marriage (according to our legislation), and (ii) what marriage can and cannot intrinsically be.

<<...I will ask you...where there is any controversy about the meaning of the term “marriage”.>>

There is no confusion as to the definition of the term “marriage”. No-one in this country is of the mistaken belief that two people of the same sex are able to get married. As to whether or not two people of the same sex can be considered married (what you may be - either sneakily or inarticulately - saying when you use the word “meaning”)? Yes, there is a controversy over this and the evidence for it is in this thread and also currently in the federal parliament.

<<Controversy about the institution of marriage itself is irrelevant.>>

Clear as mud, as usual. I trust the above has sufficiently answered your question. I await your next attempt as obfuscation.

<<I note the ignorant and baseless assertion that I am a "denier”>>

I figured you were trying to divert the discussion to your favourite topic. Here’s why you’re a denier… http://www.seccca.org.au/2010/05/18/state-of-denial-a-new-scientist-article-to-distinguish-between-sceptics-and-deniers

<<Refer me to the science which shows any measurable effect on climate by human emissions.>>

Here’s a couple of hundred thousand for you to sift through… http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1&q=evidence+for+anthropogenic+climate+change

I asked Simmo about the IPCC and ‘e doesn’t know nuffin’ about ‘em. Neither does Robbo. Thommo just shrugs ‘is shoulders when I ask ‘im why this global warmin’ stuff is all crap. Never was good wiff words, that boy. One fing’s for sure, tho: he ain’t gonna let some know-it-all poindexter take ‘is fourby off ‘im. Wouldn’t be caught dead in no pansy electric fourby either, ‘e wouldn't. A man's fourby needs a bit o' grunt.

//Toni Lavis, do you never check on facts before you reply, to avoid talking nonsense?//

Of course. I thought you might have problems with the definition of climate change simply being changes in climate, so I looked up the online Oxford dictionary. If you have a problem with their definitions, take it up with them.

climate: The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period

change: Make or become different

Since I speak english as a native language, I have no problem with the conjunction formed from those two words. Phrases don't get much simpler than 'climate change': it does what it says on the tin. It means a change in climate.

If you want to pretend that it only refers to anthropogenic climate change and excludes all the natural causes of climate change then that's up to you.

I arksed Johnno 'bout this, 'coz he's one of them leki...leckigock...lexicog... one of them who people who writes dictionaries, right? An he says... he says.... 'usage defines meaning'. Or summat like that anyway. Bloody useless. What's that s'posed to mean, eh? So I arks Davo instead, right, he's a geophysiotherapist, an I says, 'Davo, you know it used to be freezing, right, and cavemen could hunt woolly mammoths for tea? So how come it stopped being freezing and they had to hunt, I dunno, pigs instead? When they didn't have any power stations? How'd they do that, then? Make it warm without power stations?' I dunno. Something about 'Milla Jovovich - some model, I looked her up, she was the weird chick in the Fifth Element' and 'plate techno'. I reckon these scientists just make it up as they go along, mate.

Michel Shermer, cited by AJ Philips [1] strays well away from any accepted principles of science or commonsense. He labels persistent failure to come to terms with indisputable evidence for a proposition as “denial” but avoids coining a label for persistent claims that a proposition which by its very nature is not susceptible to verification by evidence or by experiment or by confirmed observation is scientific fact. If there were such a term it would apply to the propositions of eugenics and the A part of AGW. Some of his other examples are specious.

Shermer asks us to accept the counterintuitive conspiracy theory that the 9/11 murders were committed using airliners expertly guided, without backup help, by Arabs who had failed elementary pilot training, acting on a plan worked out by terrorists holed up in a remote cave. He doesn’t accept the commonsense step police take in investigating a new crime – asking who benefits. The 9/11 beneficiaries stand out in the obscenely misnamed “Patriot Act” and in the militarisation of police and in pretexts for endless colonial wars.

He’s right about some other propositions such as those about the Holocaust (Allied soldiers opened the camps, survivors told what they’d seen, and the Krauts detailed their own crimes in extensive documentation) and about evolution (readily demonstrated in lab experiments with short-lived species) and about tobacco (demonstrated in real time by its results and its mechanism traced from go to woe) and about vaccines (extensive and ongoing real time surveys). However all that is openly directed by Shermer to bolstering belief in the political hype based on AGW.

[1] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1&q=evidence+for+anthropogenic+climate+change

Emperor Julian,

Michael Shermer isn't a 9/11 truther. He wouldn't be a reputable sceptic if he was. Sceptic organisations everywhere would disown him if that were the case.

Here's an article he even wrote speaking out against, and discrediting, 9/11 conspiracies and conspiracy theorists...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/911-truthers-a-pack-of-li_b_84154.html

Oh, I read that wrong.

It is you, EmperorJulian, who is the 9/11 truther; criticising Michael Shermer for speaking out against the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Your dubious use of the term "conspiracy theory" threw me off.

I believe you have just provided us with an example of what is known as 'crank magnetism'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_%28person%29#Crank_magnetism
http://www.livescience.com/23027-link-between-climate-denial-and-conspiracy-beliefs-sparks-conspiracy-theories.html

Suddenly I don't feel the need to defend Shermer anymore.

Presumably a “9/11 truther” is someone who purports to know the truth about how the deed was set up and who conspired to do so. I don’t so purport. Shermer and AJ Philips do purport to know a bunch of bush Arabs living in holes in Afghanistan conspired to hijack airliners and run them, with deadly accuracy and without skilled pilots, into three iconic buildings. WTC7 presumably collapsed all on its own, maybe from burning bits of paper falling on it. The actual beneficiaries of the events, who later lied their heads off about Iraqi WMDs, had no part on it. Evidence? Well that’s what the beneficiaries told the world, evidence enough for true believers..

I, among millions of others, don’t know how it was worked but dismiss the conspiracy theory emanating from the beneficiaries as bollocks. The truth can be arrived at only by an exhaustive, open public inquiry (and not the sort of Earl Warren whitewash that followed the murder of JFK). This is now unlikely following the hasty removal of a large amount of physical evidence, a removal carried out in broad daylight not by the skulking Arabs but by the beneficiaries.

As the world has been denied such a public inquiry the best reconstruction that can be made is based on balance of probabilities – the bush Arabs or the immensely well-equipped and highly motivated beneficiaries. The best that sceptical websites can now rely on is surviving evidence that can’t be credibly reconciled with the conspiracy theory of tribal savages doing it all by themselves.

Not quite, EmperorJulian.

<<Presumably a “9/11 truther” is someone who purports to know the truth about how the deed was set up and who conspired to do so.>>

“Truther” is just a term for conspiracy theorists in general, and is supposed to denote their ‘search for the truth’ or demands that the ‘truth be revealed’ about a given situation.

http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%3Atruther

<<Shermer and AJ Philips do purport to know a bunch of bush Arabs living in holes in Afghanistan conspired to hijack airliners and run them, with deadly accuracy and without skilled pilots, into three iconic buildings.>>

Depends on how you define knowledge. I love seeing my name next to Michael Shermer’s like that, though.

I was learning to fly for a little while before I finally decided that it was just going get too expensive. I’ve flown several different types of commercial jets in simulators before. The hard part is landing. Even talking off is quite easy in good conditions. But finding big buildings on a clear day and heading straight for them is nothing. The GPSs in commercial jets are not much different to the ones you get in cars (or they never used to be, at least), so all one would need is the co-ordinants.

Try it yourself. Get a 3D joystick, install a copy of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator (which uses the physics engines of actual flight simulators) and fly a 737 into the Twin Towers. It’s really not that hard. It would be particularly easy if you’d had flight lessons in cruising as the hijackers did.

But this idea that the American government mass-murdered its own people to start a war is too far fetched for me. The idea that no-one blows the whistle on this, or lets anything leak, seems equally improbable. The same goes for the conspiratorial thinking from some on the Left regarding ‘Big Pharma’ and ‘Big Agra’; and from those on the Right regarding, well, anything to do with academia, really.

When it comes to such conspiratorial thinking, I think Maddox said it best… http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=911_morons

It’s not surprising that someone who invents a conspiracy theory to try to rival the tribal savages conspiracy theory will invent harmless nonsense. But it is far from harmless nonsense to assume that the mongrels that have fomented coups and colonial wars for years to murder tens, even hundreds, of thousands of innocent people, and brave people who defended their countries against coups and aggression, from Vietnam to Latin America to the Middle East and North Africa and are still at it, would be incapable of murdering 3000 innocent people in America to achieve the sweeping changes that 9/11 achieved. Drastic regime change in America itself in one hit, and far from being only America.

The open inquiry that the beneficiaries stubbornly resist wouldn’t waste its time examining one wild amateur conspiracy theory after another but would examine the very bad smell under the conspiracy theory that criminals like Cheyney and Powell and Bush and the PNAC Neocons fed the world on 9/11 and thereafter, while nailing home the colossal advantages the murders from New York to Washington yielded them. Let them defend THEIR story, never mind about the crackpot wild guesses.

EmperorJulian,

I’m not sure why you find the idea of well-funded, university-educated hijackers timing their flights; hijacking them (at a time when airport security was far more lax); and then flying them into buildings that would be visible from kilometers away on a clear day, so hard to believe. You are using inaccurate descriptors like “Bush Arabs” and “tribal savages” to make the above scenario sound more unlikely than what it really was at the time.

There is also a difference between openly attacking other countries - deaths 'n' all - under one’s own flag (however thinly veiled the real reasons are), and secretly killing your own citizens on your own soil and dressing it up to look like terrorists. How are there no Edward Snowdons in this instance? Hundreds would have to have known about it and yet no-one says a thing despite how easy it is to anonymously leak information online. The same questions remain for climatologists and ‘Big Pharma’.

And why aren’t the conspiracy theorists being bumped off? ‘Big Pharma’ has apparently fiddled with every test involving vaccines, bought off every government, and bought off every doctor, and yet they can’t even pull down a YouTube video from some crank.

Anyway, that's it for me on this thread, I think. We're way off topic now and I don't think Leo Lane is coming back. Which is a pity. In the next chapter I was going to introduce Damo, and the boys were going to go on a four-wheel-drive camping trip where they see evidence against AGW in the fact that the first morning was really cold.

Craig Minns

Nasty, nasty, nasty. Yuk!

It's a hopeless task to address such vitriol and hate. The problem you see in me is really within you.

I asked AJPhillips for science to show that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate. This was his reply: Here’s a couple of hundred thousand for you to sift through… http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1&q=evidence+for+anthropogenic+climate+change

Not one of the links had any reference to science which showed any measurable effect of human emissions on climate.
This is an extract from one of them:” spatial patterns of the response to anthropogenic forcing may in fact project principally onto modes of natural climate variability. Here we use atmospheric circulation data from the Northern Hemisphere to show that recent climate change can be interpreted in terms of changes in the frequency of occurrence of natural atmospheric circulation regimes. We conclude that recent Northern Hemisphere warming may be more directly related to the thermal structure of these circulation regimes than to any anthropogenic forcing pattern itself. “http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v398/n6730/full/398799a0.html.
Only a time-wasting clown would give such a reply, as he did.
He referred me to sites which baselessly assert human caused warming. The science shows that the human effect is trivial, and not measurable.

I stated what the science is without a reference. Here is what Professor Robert Carter gives as a summary
", with the formation of the IPCC, and a parallel huge expansion of research and consultancy money into climate studies, energy studies and climate policy, an intensive effort has been made to identify and measure the human signature in the global temperature record at a cost that probably exceeds $100 billion. And, as Kevin Rudd might put it, “You know what? No such signature has been able to be isolated and measured.”
That, of course, doesn’t mean that humans have no effect on global temperature, because we know that carbon dioxide is a mild greenhouse gas, and we can also measure the local temperature effects of human activity, which are both warming (from the urban heat island effect) and cooling (due to other land-use change, including irrigation). Sum these effects all over the world and obviously there must be a global signal; that we can’t identify and measure it indicates that the signal is so small that it is lost in the noise of natural climate variation."
http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/tag/professor-bob-carter/

//Craig Minns

Nasty, nasty, nasty. Yuk!//

Really, Killarney? Craig's views are nastier and yukkier than runner's or Dr Dave's?

Really?

So you WERE going to return eventually, Leo Lane. That's a relief. It just goes to show how long cherry-picking data takes, eh. I admire your resolve.

It's funny you should finally respond now because we had my brother-in-law and his partner over for dinner tonight and he's an atmospheric physicist (he's gay too, as if there had to be any more coincidences). I showed him your question and he had a bit of a chuckle because of how it is deceitfully framed, according to him. Basically he said that your expectation of a method of measuring the human effect on climate was probably going to be (what I would refer to as) the Goal Post Shifting fallacy. Your expectation is effectively like a creationist expecting that someone be able to witness one species evolve into another.

He said that, technically, you’re right - there is no way to *accurately* measure the human effect on climate change - but went on to point out how we can know that humans are affecting it due to the fact that the last time this much much CO2 entered the atmosphere this quickly, the earth was a lot more volatile with a lot of volcanic activity.

Deforestation and overfishing are also contributing through the negating factor that trees and ocean life and would normally have on the levels of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere. He went on for ages with a whole lot of stuff that I can’t articulate or remember but it just goes to show how unrealistic it is that some guy, who claims that heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic, is actually going to be able to expose some alleged grand “scam”.

He also mentioned that denialists are right when they say that scientists predict that we’re supposed to be entering a cooling period - in their usual attempt to make it appear as though there is a lack of consensus - but he pointed out that they neglect to mention that that only makes what is happening now even more profound than what we’re observing.

Continued…

...Continued

Here’s what an actual sceptic has to say about denialism in general:

“The denial of established scientific conclusions is the flip side of pseudoscience – rather than establishing a dubious belief, it seeks to knock down a legitimate theory. The basic strategy is often referred to as FUD – fear, uncertainty, doubt. Another common term is manufactroversy, a fake or manufactured popular controversy where there is no real scientific controversy.

Denialism of often politically or otherwise ideologically motivated. The primary cognitive process involved seems to be motivated reasoning. The specific tactics include magnifying any doubt or uncertainty about the relevant facts and science. Part of this is to deny that there is a consensus of scientific opinion, or even that a consensus can exist in science (or is relevant). Disputes among scientists about details are used to argue that more fundamental conclusions are in doubt.

Continued…

...Continued

Common topics in this category include the antivaccine movement, opposition to GMO, excessive doubt regarding global warming, and evolution denial (creationism). There are countless less-widespread examples, however, including HIV denial, holocaust denial, germ theory denial, and many others.
This category can alternately be described as ideology trumping science through motivated reasoning. This does not necessarily have to involve denying clearly established science, but can be broadened to include any situation in which a scientific position is taken for ideological reasons. There are many scientific questions that have strong political implications. For example, is sexual orientation more biological or personal choice, is recycling effective, is circumcision a beneficial medical procedure, are gun laws effective in reducing violent crime, and does abortion cause harm to the pregnant woman. These are all questions that can at least be addressed scientifically, and yet people tend to form opinions on the facts that are in line with their political views.”

Anyway, do you have any to say about the actual topic, or were my suspicions about your desire to divert to a topic that you think you're more competent actually right?

The boys ‘n’ I went on a four-wheel-drive campin’ trip the other week. Damo came along with us this time. The first mornin’ was as cold as a flamin’ iceberg, I tell ya. Simmo and Robbo stayed in their tent ‘til ten. Mate, Thommo ‘ad shrinkage like you wouldn’t believe! Said ‘e’s a grower, ‘e did. That’s ‘is excuse anyway. I reckon ‘e’s fullovit. “So much for this global warmin’ stuff”, said Damo. ‘e always was the sharper one. Into books ‘n’ stuff that guy. ‘ad a cousin who wrote for Pent’ouse, ‘e did. Or took pictures for the amature section or sumpin’.

All that nonsense, AJPhillipsand no explanation as to why global warming has stopped, when the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased. I do not have to “deny” your science. It has been proven not to work.
The point of the real science is that the human effect is trivial and not measurable. How does your brother-in-law work out that my question is “deceitful”? Ask him if it is as deceitful as falsely representing that the links you give are to the science showing a measurable effect 0f human emissions on climate?
What is this supposed to mean:” we can know that humans are affecting it due to the fact that the last time this much much CO2 entered the atmosphere this quickly, the earth was a lot more volatile with a lot of volcanic activity.”.I think it means that he has no idea, but would like to sound as if he does, by talking nonsense. Much like you in the last para of your post. You talk gibberish there because you are embarrassed at what a fool you have made of yourself
I do not expect that science will work out a way to measure the trivial effect of human emissions on climate. They would be more likely to be able to find a cure for homosexuality.. If it is not measurable it is not scientifically noticed, so the science is that human emissions have no effect on climate.

Actually, Leo Lane, you didn't even ask about this...

<<...no explanation as to why global warming has stopped, when the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased.>>

But funnily enough, I had already unwittingly answered it. How's that for the predictability of denialist arguments, eh?

You guys are such a sad bunch. The IQ of Simmo, Robbo, Thommo and Damo, I reckon. But pointing this out through those characters is the whole reason for their existence, after all. I think they're really starting to take on a life of their own, if you ask me. I need to build more on Robbo though. We don't really know much about him other than the fact that he's a four-wheel-driver who doesn't know who the IPCC are but denies AGW anyway (probably through fear of change). He was inspired by the race car driver Kevin Bartlett.

Now do you have anything regarding your claim that heterosexual-only marriage is axiomatic? I keep trying to drag you back to that (you know, the actual topic of this entire discussion) but you don’t seem to be too interested in discussing it anymore. Why is that?

the event that demonstrates that there is no science to support the claims of the climate fraud, AJPhillips, is the cessation of global warming, so, if you want to assert the threadbare claim, you should at least mention the circumstance which completely disposes of your assertion, without being asked.
Do you want to pretend that you are unaware that there is not a shred of scientific backing for the human caused global warming assertion?

Salby has shown that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is governed by the temperature. The temperature is not governed by the CO2 content of the atmosphere. We know that Salby is right, not only from his scientific proof, but from the vigour with which he has been attacked by the fraud-backers.

As to marriage, millions of people have entered the state of matrimony as a union between a man and a woman.
No statutory redefinition of the word “marriage” will change that, for them, or for people who in the future wish to marry. The statutory redefinition will be, so far as humanly possible, ignored.

Just to interrupt the Lane/Philips pissing contest, how about examining the structure of debate over facts and ideas, and practices which either promote or deflect reason?

One technique for shutting down debate is declaring a disputed proposition a self-evident axiom. "Marriage means what Howard said it meant". "Science shows that CO2 emission is creating calamitous temperature rise". Contradiction is (gasp, rattle, shudder) DENIAL. Debate over.

Let’s see how the “denialism” trick is worked.

The key to this debate-closing technique is CONFLATION. One can deny anything from what's blindingly obvious to what's demonstrably hair brained and phoney. The Nazi Holocaust, the effectiveness of vaccination, the role of Monsanto against informed choice, the Darwinian theory of evolution, the US landing on the moon, the link between HIV and AIDS, the role of germs, are all demonstrable to a level of “beyond reasonable doubt”. To deny any of them would require a hell of a stretch, and would place the denier in tinfoil hat territory or worse.

One can also find evidentiary reasons based on accepted epistemology to dispute AGW, Howard marriage, the nature/nurture basis of sexual orientation (one way or the other), medical harm from (male) circumcision or from abortion. Conflating the questioning of any of these with something like Holocaust denial or creationism, under the umbrella of “denialism” is nothing more than an attempt to shut down reasoned debate.

//Salby has shown that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is governed by the temperature. The temperature is not governed by the CO2 content of the atmosphere.//

Has it occurred to you that Salby (whoever she is) could be both right and wrong?

Wrong that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is governed by temperature, and right that the temperature is not governed by CO2.

Because you've said yourself that the CO2 concentration is increasing whilst average temperatures have levelled off. If the temperature has levelled off, and CO2 levels follow temperature trends, why does the level of CO2 keep increasing steadily?

And then you have the other half of the equation: CO2 levels do keep steadily increasing and we're not all baked potatoes yet. Maybe there is more to this climate business than just CO2. Well, of course there is: all the other greenhouse gases, volcanic activity, deforestation, solar activity, astronomical perturbations, etc. etc.

//No statutory redefinition of the word “marriage” will change that, for them, or for people who in the future wish to marry. The statutory redefinition will be, so far as humanly possible, ignored.//

Your powers of precognition astound me. I wish my crystal ball wasn't on the fritz, so that I could see the future as easily as you do. Nevertheless, I won't be placing any wagers on the basis of your soothsaying.

//opposition to GMO//

//the role of Monsanto against informed choice//

conflation: The merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, etc. into one

Julian, was there some point to your rambling? Stating that it is axiomatic that marriage is a union between a man and a woman did not shut down debate.
Any other suggestions, as to how to shut down the nonsense?
You referred to the legislation which codified the law of marriage, in what appeared a derisive manner, and erroneously, as Howard's law. Howard did not formulate or introduce the law, which already existed as common law. It pre-existed both Howard and the statute which declared it. It is not Howard's law.

Leo Lane has written that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman because this is axiomatic which means self-evident and beyond debate. Howard has assumed it and stated it. The amateur cleric Dr David van Geld has assumed it. Correspondents on this thread are challenging it. The Irish people have challenged it in a referendum. Proclaiming it to be axiomatic is shutting down debate to the fullest extent possible without the power to ban contradiction as crimethink.

As for difficulty in coping with discussion of the structure of debate, dismissing it as “rambling”, there is a vast amount of education about this available. A start might be Robert H Thouless – Google “Thouless Straight and Crooked Thinking.” Of course, one can always fall back on the three word slogan: “Ignorance Is Strength”

I had a look at the website to which you referred, Julian, and I would say that your labelling of the amendment to the Marriage Act defining marriage as “Howard’s law would come under ”Appeal to prejudice”. You use it as a means to distract from the fact that it is soundly based,on the then existing law, by erroneously implying that Howard composed it. Your approach is slightly above that of the then greens leader, whose argument against the law was that it was “hateful”. What a dunce! Shutting down of debate by reference to an axiomatic statement seems to be your own idea, with about as much practical application as the science of the IPCC, on global warming..

Re Leo Lane, here are the dots. Join them.

# Leo Lane insisted that the definition of a marriage as between a man and a woman was axiomatic.
# Axiomatic means beyond contradiction or dispute.
# This invalidates any debate over the validity of the definition of marriage in the 2004 Marriage Act.
# The “axiom” proposition is therefore a demand to shut down debate.
# QED

Labelling it the definition spoken by Howard is not an attempt to colour views against it, only to distinguish it from other definitions. I have often referred to the Howard gun laws, as such, with great approval.

PS: Ignorance is far from strength.

Debate may have shut down on this thread, but not because it has been accepted that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

There are still those who put forward the untenable assertions of same sex marriage, and the baseless “marriage equality”.
We all have equal rights to marriage, which is a union between a man and a woman. A relationship between same sex couples is not marriage. They should work out what they want it called, and seek social acceptance of it, not attempt to establish a parasitic existence of such “unions” within the established institution of marriage..
The triumph of the homosexual political activism lobby in the result of the referendum has no future.
It will be backed by a spurious redefinition of marriage, by statute, which will become bogged down in the endless difficulty generated by such clumsy attempts at social engineering. The unintended consequences will surface, some sooner, some later, but our time honoured social structure will reassert itself.
This thread to a large measure contained insults to the author, with no reasoned opposition to his views, some complaining that he is even permitted to express such views.
He was referred to as a dinosaur, and directed to report to a museum.
Given the cunning of the homosexual political lobby, the supporters of the baseless same sex “marriage”, and “marriage equality” concoction, which has been so successful, could be designated outhouse rats, and directed to report to the nearest outhouse, if the debate were to be dragged down to that level.
It has descended to a disgraceful level in the aspersions cast on the good doctor’s professional capacity, with no basis other than a desire to insult him for presenting views unanswerable in any rational manner.
As to a purported demand by me, to “shut down debate”.
I merely put forward facts which invalidated the spurious propositions of “same sex marriage” and denial of “marriage equality”. There is no demand to shut down debate, just a demonstration of the pathetic nature of the propositions I have answered.

Oh Gawd, Leo, enough obsessing already.

, Craig, there was no need to remind us that, like Julian, you have no rational observation to make, just a desire to impose a negative label on what is positive and rational, and to which you have no answer..
I cannot say which is the more pathetic, your label of “obsessing”, or Julian’s nonsense of “shut down debate”. A puerile effort from each of you..

Leo, when you start "discussing" rather than "debating" I'll be all ears. As it is, you're simply preaching to the "choir invisibule" (as John Cleese may have put it).

You've also made a bit of a fool of yourself with regard to your assumptions about my own views on religion.

Never mind, mate, you can go on obsessively ranting about whatever it is you're obsessed about and the rest of us can get on with more important things and the world will not stop turning.

And in a couple of years homosexual marriage will be a "thing" and you will be set for a topic to lament about for the rest of your life.

God is indeed good...

Craig:"You've also made a bit of a fool of yourself with regard to your assumptions about my own views on religion."
I have made no assumption, or even given any thought to your views on religion. I would be interested to know what I have said that you have interpreted in such a way as to believe that I had. Have you confused me with someone else?

In that case, Leo, I will withdraw my comment to that effect. In a similar spirit, perhaps you can explain your own comment:
" you have no rational observation to make, just a desire to impose a negative label on what is positive and rational, and to which you have no answer."

What precisely was it in reference to?

Thanks, Craig. I am none the wiser, as to the basis of your remark, but will consider that we have a fresh, blank page on which to work.

To clarify my remark, I suppose I had pigeonholed you with Julian, and ascribed his method to your comment. I also see you as a supporter of same sex “marriage, so see no validity in your situation. Consequently I saw “obsessive” as a label dreamt up to avoid showing that you had no valid comment. I acknowledge that I have seen enough of your posts to know better, but I did not direct sufficient attention to it.
I see that you may have simply regarded my post as obsessive, and made the comment in a conversational style.
I take intense care with my posts, which I do not see as obsessive, so my answer was also on the basis that I considered your description of my presentation to be flawed.

Your expectation of success of the “ marriage” scam is by no means assured. We may be observing the beginning of a long and intense contest, which will determine whether the surprise win of the homosexual lobby will be sustained, when the opposition gathers and concentrates its resources on righting the situation.
Time will tell. Best Regards.

Leo, there is nothing surer than the eventual implementation of laws that give homosexual couples equivalent rights to cohabit as married couples.

So let's just get it over and done with and do something more interesting.