GP: Hit the nail on the head. If it doesn't matter, why stop it? I say again: show reasons to deny it, or allow it. Something cannot simultaneously be something we don't care about yet something we must block.

Dan: I do see the Aboriginal situation of the 1960s as more fundamental than this. However, when it comes to civil rights, they must all be taken seriously. The point is to say in that case, the majority saw an injustice and corrected it, even though that injustice affected only a minority. I understand that this issue does not matter TO YOU. It matters to others; and for any form of rights framework to function properly, then we must support those rights that do not only affect ourselves, but others. By doing so, we ensure our OWN rights.

Dan: the issue of gay marriage is important precisely because it is symbolic. There is no rational case whatsoever against banning it. It is kept off the agenda purely by agitation and string-pulling by people who find it disgusting or terrifying that other people should have different kinds of sexual urges from themselves. A public and legal acceptance of gay marriage would be a major step towards demonstrating that we value and aspire to a society in which all people are viewed as equal, and decisions are based on the greatest good of the greatest number, not Bronze Age codes founded on ignorance and hatred.

As I understand it, secular systems, states - e.g., our state and federal systems - recognise civil unions, and strictly speaking, it is up to churches to recognise those unions by overseeing marriage. Civil unions: secular authorities, marriages: religious authorities. If this is correct, then issues to do with marriage are not really the business of secular authorities.

But what the hell, do it, get it off the agenda and let's get back to more important issues.

I find the comparison between Indigenous rights in the sixties and same-sex-marriage rights frankly offensive: I don't really care where somebody shoves it, up each other, up dogs, in a hole in a wall, but don't compare this piddly issue with the rights of human beings to equality and opportunity, to the sorts of rights that non-Indigenous people have taken for granted for generations. Such a comparison is contemptible and trivialises what discrimination means.

It's only fifty or sixty years since Indigenous people were allowed to finish primary school. It's barely fifty years since they were allowed, in many states, to ASSOCIATE with non-Indigenous people - to put that on some sort of comparative plane, imagine if homosexuals were labelled and not allowed to go to secondary school, mix with other people (okay, bad example), live in towns or cities, or aspire to the same sorts of careers as other people.

I really think that some people haven't got a clue what discrimination means. God save us from this self-obsessed focus on petty issues, when there are so many more important issues to resolve.

Joe

Senior Victorian comes close to acceptable compromise suggesting the removal of the Government from the equation, but how? The ship of Marriage has been mortally wounded over recent years by heavy handed Government interventions equalising de-facto and marriage unions in law as only one example.

Question is, because what remains of the institution is so politically irrelevant, what mechanism would, at this point, painlessly remove unnecessary Government oversight of marriage allowing segments of the community, such as the opponents of SS Marriage, to safely ignore personally important biases and feel less threatened by a looming Government dictate on the issue?

The Labor Government is nervous of compromise on this issue. Their decision will be a catalyst moment in my voting life for sure; the wrong decision will signal the need for a change in my allegiance, and will be the proof I need to indicate that Bob Brown and not Julia Gillard is the serving Prime Minister

Loudmouth: This is a piddly issue to you. I get that. That doesn't mean that it's a piddly issue to everyone. Now, had I directly compared this aspect of civil rights to the importance of the 1967 referendum, then that would have been offensive. I didn't. I used it as an illustration of how people can take seriously the rights of those other than themselves. I further say that in the arena of civil rights, ALL rights are important. Not necessarily of equal importance, but of importance, yes. There is no such thing as a 'piddly' right. If it's piddly, why quash it? Again: give me reasons to deny it, don't just tell me it's a nothing issue.

Thanks, however, for telling people how they should feel about something that affects their life, merely because it doesn't matter to you. That's open-minded.

In regards to marriage being religious, no, it's both in this modern state. Churches can sanction marriages, but so can civil celebrants. Government is in the marriage business and has been for a very very long time. And of course it is, given the number of ways that marriage changes one's relation with official bodies.

Diver Dan: I never have understood why, to be important, marriage must be unique. Can you explain this to me?

James Carman. *show harm* (or shut up?)

SIMPLE.

Accept gay marriage and you MUST by reason and "civil rights" accept/legalize POLYGAMY because that is the 'religious freedom' for a Muslim.

Then...you must by reason of NOT being allowed to say "But I don't think it's right" ALSO destigmatize and LEGALize:

-Intergenerational/homosexual sex acts. (Read NAMBLA)
-INCEST. (we can protect against unwanted pregnancy now...remember!)
-Bestiality. (no prengancy worries there!)
-Age of consent down to...hmmm err..say 7 or 8 ?

Now..trying to pen this argument issue into JUST 'gay marriage' is not only ridiculous and absurd it is offensive and insulting.

So let me affirm...there is PLENTY of *HARM* to our social structure, our morality and our social well being from allowing gay marriage.

Speaking from a religious perspective now... as far as God is concerned.. homosexual behavior is an abomination, and:

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26)

Why did God give them over to such things ?

"the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie," Rom 1:24/25

*THAT*'s why!

I suggest also, that the above, is one reason Bob Brown and the Greens are sooooo Christaphobic.
Rather than legalize gay marriage...let's challenge Christphobia.