@Celivia

If you are against government intervention for all marriages how can you be considered discriminatory when you suggest that one group who are part of that 'all' should not be subject to government intervention?

'There are many reasons why people might want to get married'
There are, but none of them are logical.

'Perhaps opponents of same sex marriage should stop making a big song and dance about side issues like 'the value of marriage'
It is hardly a side issue. If you think marriage has no value then logically it follows that homosexual marriage has no value and therefore should not be supported. It is up to everyone who wants taxpayer dollars spent on them to justify that expense with good reasons. Nobody in this discussion has come up with a good argument to justify marriage and therefore they have not made a justifiable claim for whatever government support or involvement they want.

Phanto,

You simply don't get it.
It doesn't matter whether people's reasons to get married are logical or not.
If heterosexual couples can get married for illogical reasons, then same-sex couples should have the option to do the same.
This is what I and others like CJ said all along.

There is no logical reason why homosexuals, as the only group in the whole of Australia, should not have the option to get married when everybody else does have that option.

Imagine that homosexuals would be the only group that didn't have the option to use an automated car wash, would you then say that it didn't matter because it would be a waste of water to use a car wash anyway, and that it was illogical to want to wash your car, or that it would have no value to drive around in a clean car?

The particular issue doesn't really matter to me. What matters is that every Australian should have the same rights and not be excluded from an activity or service as a group. It is discriminatory no matter what kind of illogical fabrication to justify that discrimination you'd come up with.

@Cornflower

The state and federal government regulate practially everything. Look we gays and lesbian couples want to be treated like heterosexual couples and because heterosexual couples relationships are regulated under law then for us to be equal then we need our relationships to be regulated as well to be equal. Common sense suggests that if gay and lesbian relationships are not reconised under law then they will face discrimination. Its all about wanting to be equal.

Stern: <"...it is not reasonable to embrace it.>"

Nobody is asking anyone whose orientation is otherwise to embrace homosexuality, just to stop irrationally standing in the way of one group participating as citizens.

I recall hospital staff preventing a fellow from being with his partner during the palliative stage of his illness. Their arguments included that the dying man's family wouldn't want him there and that only next-of-kin were allowed at bedside. Unless partners are recognized legally as such, there are all sorts of ways that exclusion can be cruelly applied.

Some of the arguments here would be hilarious if they they didn't have such awful impact on other people.

I see some folk who are non-religious/anti-Christianity/pro Libertarian suddenly championing moral values and tradition - but I bet they would have a blue fit if anyone suggested, especially on moral grounds, that they dispose of their porn stash or limit their sexual activity or stop working on Sundays or stop defying any of a whole range of cultural artefacts that have come down through history; filtered into current society through our Christian belief system.

It's a strange and interesting form of hypocrisy that in a society where "anything goes", there is a line being drawn against same sex love/sex.... Oh, I forgot - unless it's female homosexuality (or some semblance of it) performing for the titillation of all those 'normal' heterosexuals.

pffft. hypocrites

I wish that government would get out of the marriage business. However, as long as they are in the marriage business I see no reason to deny it to same sex couples.

In our present society civil marriage is a necessity. If we don't have it then clergy decide who can get married. That's the way it is in Israel.

Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights people have the right to marry who they choose. If they choose someone who is of the same sex or doesn't share their religious beliefs that should be no impediment.

jason84. "Look we gays and lesbian couples want to be treated like heterosexual couples"

Who says? You says?!

If you read the link provided by another poster you will find that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, do not want government to be horning in on their private lives and determining their 'couple' status as de factos. Similarly university students and old people sharing digs can be subjected to the moral judgement of Centrelink and to their detriment. Here is that link again:
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/gay-couples-register-with-centrelink-for-welfare-20100130-n5ho.html