Hi there Riz

a couple of points.

You said:
//And some people find it more fun to shag someone of the same sex. Exactly what is so threatening about that notion?//

The threatening part is the 'baggage'....

a) The Gay lobby will never stop at 'equality'
b) They will hound and marginalize Christians and Churches
c) They seek to 'brainwash' the tiny innocent children with propoganda through education and media. (Play school..-2 mummies) and sex ed.

That is where the 'threat' is.

Now.. on the polygamy SSM thing. I'm afraid my comment was not a red herring. It came out of a personal encounter with Rodney Croome in Melbourne, where he was asked by Bill Muhelenberg why other types of 'family' patterns would not similarly cry out for recognition?

Polygamy is one such alternative 'family' pattern.

Nope.. can't see any red on that.
cheers

<<This is true>> (that homosexuals are statistically many, many times more likely to contract STD's) <<but marriage, while by no means ensuring monogamy, does a great deal to encourage monogamy.>>
Not homosexual "marriage".

Homosexuals redefinition of marriage includes jettisoning monogamy:
"Forty-seven percent of gay couples in a recently published study said that they had "sex agreements" with their partners, which clarify how often and in what circumstances they are permitted to have sex with others. Only 45% said that their relationships were monogamous, while another 8% disagreed about whether their relationship was “open” or exclusive, according to an ongoing study by the Center for Research on Gender & Sexuality at San Francisco State University."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10072006.html

ALGOREisRICH, um, where to start...

a) The Gay lobby will never stop at 'equality'

Who is asking for more than equality? Rodney is arguing for gays and lesbians to have the same right to marry they person they love as straight people. It will have no impact on us straight people, except we get to live in a fairer society, which I am all in favour of. Wonder if anyone tried this "argument" against giving women the vote...ah, those women, they'll never stop at equality...hmmm....100 years later....

b) They will hound and marginalize Christians and Churches

What are you basing this on? Exactly how are or will Christians and churches be hounded or marginalised? Is is the large tax breaks for churches funded by us taxpayers that's bothering you? The overly deferential attitude to someone's interpretation of an old book? The exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation? Gee...poor churches.

c) They seek to 'brainwash' the tiny innocent children with propoganda through education and media. (Play school..-2 mummies) and sex ed."

Wouldn't be awful if children grew up with an understanding and respect of human diversity, it might actually produce a peaceful, happy and tolerant society. Couldn't have that, maybe no-one would need religion anymore...

Proxy, it's a bit rich dismissing polls with results you deem unfavourable (62% of Australians support gay marriage) while supporting findings of polls that aid your cause (47% of gay couples have sex agreements). What makes your poll any more valid than the other?

That said, when you start using terms like "gay bowel syndrome", your credibility really flies out the window.

"The threatening part is the 'baggage'....

a) The Gay lobby will never stop at 'equality'
b) They will hound and marginalize Christians and Churches
c) They seek to 'brainwash' the tiny innocent children with propoganda through education and media. (Play school..-2 mummies) and sex ed.

That is where the 'threat' is."
-ALGOREisRICH

a) How do you know that? It is impossible to have knowledge of the future. The best one can do is make predictions, and they're frequently erroneous.
b) See a).
c) As opposed to brainwashing the tiny innocent children with propaganda through the Church, education (SRE), media and advertising. That's OK 'coz it's only wrong for some people to brainwash children, right Al?

Face it, champ: there is no 'threat'. And I know what you're trying to do there: first you attempt to portray homosexuals as intolerant and militantly evangelical; then you mount an argument against the portrayal you just created, rather than mounting an argument against equal rights for all Australian citizens (which is what we're discussing). It's called 'creating a strawman', and unfortunately for you I'm no more fooled by strawmen than I am by red herrings.

Speaking of which: it doesn't matter in the slightest what type of encounter with whom prompted your comment, because you raised an argument about polygamy in a debate about homosexual marriage, and in doing so committed the fallacy of irrelevancy. Arguments about polygamy are relevant only to debates about polygamy, and the only arguments relevant to debates about SSM are arguments about SSM. Arguments not about SSM (e.g. about polygamy) are irrelevant, and when an irrelevant argument is used in an apparent attempt to distract from the issue being debated (as yours was), it is commonly referred to as a 'red herring'.

If heterosexuality is the norm, what threat can the Gay Lobby impose?

You cannot make a heterosexual into a homosexual by bestowing the same human rights on same sex marriage for goodness sake.

Al, you and I won't become gay overnight should the law change? Where do you get these thought processes from?

If you are gay you are gay if not you are not and some inbetween. Why deny these same rights to gay couples. It comes down to human decency and a desire not to demonise those who might be different to the norm, but whose sexuality is very much 'natural' to them.