This is a good FORUM, I started here a little while ago been ignorant but the wise folk here got me thinking about Gay Marraige. I have Lesbin neighbors with kids and they are realy good Mum's so I think David might be wrong even tho he means well.

ALGOisrICH, I thnik u are also wrong dont u know any Gay Parents? I am Christan but I dont think Jesus would care if Parents are Gay so long as they care for theyre kids and love them

David says "Opposition to gay marriage is all about the child, and no parliament has the right to impose a motherless life on a little child." This implies that legalising same-sex marriage will lead to more children with parents of only one gender.

Firstly, if that was the case I don't think that's a bad thing. The empirical research is that such children are no worse off than children from male/female relationships. Gay parents put far more effort (and money) into becoming parents than straight parents (no drunken accidents) so these are wanted, loved children, and wanted, loved children are more likely to contribute positively to society. Also, children raised by those who have historically been discriminated against may be more likely to be understanding and accepting of the diversity in our community - again, a good thing. You can see many happy same-sex couples, quite a few with children at www.thepotentialweddingalbum.org. I am heterosexual and very happy for there to be more families of this type in our community.

Secondly, I doubt that same-sex marriage will actually lead to more children. People generally have children because they want them - and as noted above it takes effort to have kids if you're gay - not because the government has notionally sanctioned them doing so. Are a same-sex couple who would not have had children otherwise really going to change their minds on kids because they can get married? I doubt it, they are independent decisions.

David also says "Homosexual relations do not give rise to children, so such relations are of no institutional importance to society." Plenty of heterosexual relationships do not give rise to children but they are still of importance to society - society should encourage all happy, stable couples, not designate some as more worthy than others on the basis of sexual orientation.

What is of institutional importance in our society is the principle of not discriminating based on sexual orientation and sending a message to a section of the community at much higher risk of suicide and depression that they are considered equal.

David van Gend writes this here http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2271&page=0

“The iceberg of clinical fact looming up in the dark is this: that homosexuals who want to become heterosexual can and do change, as authoritative medical research has now demonstrated. Given the will, and skilled therapy, there can be an end to the nightmare of same-sex attraction. That is the best news for our heartsick friends down below deck, but it is bad news for the complacent triumphalists of the Gay Titanic.

Bad news for their tall tale that being gay is like being black, an immutable inborn identity. Bad news, in the debate on gay marriage, for their false analogies with apartheid and Aborigines, since blacks cannot stop being blacks, but gays can stop being gay.

Homosexuality emerges in its truer light, not as a minority "genetic identity" but as a complex conditioned behaviour, which can and does change.”

This is from where his is coming. Narrow and ugly religious bigotry disguised as protecting the children. Disgusting!

David van Gend’s words on this subject should be dismissed out of hand. The compassionate forward thinking majority will not agree with them. Nor should they.

David

My most serious objection to gay marriage is it might make gays respectable, that is lend them the same semblance of respectability marriage folk wrap themselves up in. Let's stop kidding the kids that marriage is stable or respectable.

Thank you David van Gend for injecting an eloquent breath of sanity into the SSM debate.

Your obvious deep-felt concern for children stands in stark contrast to the selfishness of those who are pushing for same-sex "marriage".

They would deliberately seek to deprive children of their natural birthright of a mother and a father merely to fill the emptiness in their own lives.

They talk of their "fundamental human right" to marry with nary a thought of the consequences for children.

Shame on them and plaudits to you.

I don't have any statistics on outcomes for children in single parent households, and I can't be bothered looking them up. Anecdotally, I know that kids with one mum and no dad often do better than kids with one of each. And I very much doubt that kids with one dad or mum do much worse, statistically, than kids with one of each. This suggests that the presence of mum or dad isn't as important as it's cracked up to be. And I cannot plausibly see how two mums/dads could be worse than one. At the worst, homosexual parenting is as bad as single parenting - and the kids of single parents seem to turn out fine. At best, homosexual parents are better parents than heterosexuals. What, exactly, is the problem here?