Hi Belly - in response to your post to me several pages ago - yes, of course you have right to an opinion and the right to avoid gays- I just wanted to know why. I'm sorry to read you had such a past with lascivious men trying to invade your space and right to live unmolested. I had similar issues and hated it - and I'm gay! Further to the article - New Zealand has made an industry out of gay marriage since legalisation in 2013. Many Aussies have gone there to marry. Why people think there should have been a mad rush for same sex couples to suddenly marry here is beyond me. The law will not be changed, it simply means that from now on gays can marry - when they want to.

HereNow I am far from the standard issue anti gay ranter, my job took me in hundreds of klm driven trips, leaving home for 6 am trips and near three hundred klm to drive, believe me some of those early morning toilet stop had to be fast,in truth my best delegates in some work places are openly gay too, but even they trembled at the things they had to see while working in one of our best national parks,your life in this current world can not have been easy, while fighting still for your rights, even if it is a failure in me, I can not abandon my views PLEASE understand I know such people exist in the Hetro sexual world too

Dear HereNow,

Welcome to the forum.

I wonder if we'll ever see the day in this country when
we'll simply accept each other for our individual human
qualities, rather than labelling each other according to
our biological sex, sexual orientation, political views,
race, religion, and so forth.

As history has shown - the times do change - admittedly
sometimes slower than others. In the meantime, all we can
do I guess is find the place where we feel comfortable
safe and secure.

Dear Belly,

I really feel for you and what you had to put up with
from unwanted advances. I guess most of us have had
some of those. Luckily for me - they were not taken
any further - once I made it quite clear that I wasn't
interested. Well, except for my boss in one work
situation where I ended up quietly quitting and moving to a new
job. I didn't complain to anyone about it though. I was more
mindful of not burning any bridges behind me - I just left.

Foxy I am a front row forward and am not under the bed hiding as a result of this, but felt in sharing my view and history in a world that see some still undermining women's rights I could show just what it must be for far too many of them, still shudder as I watch mates do things that are just wrong did not know HereNow was new hope we see more of him/her

Hopefully we shall see the percentage of legal-marriages for heterosexual couples drop similarly.

Not that marriage is bad - in fact it is excellent, but what a shame to invite the regime to your wedding, what a shame to beg it for papers and ask this evil body to certify/approve/bless your intimate life!

What has been so unfair with the recent change of the Marriage-Act, is the lack of provision for previously-married couples to become unmarried: before 2004 it was implicitly implied and between 2004-2017 couples registered their marriage on the explicit understanding that the "marriage" they were entering into was one thing, whereas now it means another. Given this change, they should be able to declare their previous status to be null and void: "No, this is NOT what we entered into, this was NOT our agreement, so let us out and de-register our marriage right now".

Forcing loving couples and families to live apart for over a year just in order to obtain divorce-papers and get rid of this sham-contract, is not good enough!