LEGO
The case for same-sex marriage assumes a consensual agreement and the principle of 'no harm'.

The fact you compare SSM to acts of sexual abuse and cruelty does nothing but diminish your argument against same-sex marriage and only highlights the long reach of ingrained prejudice.

Sauropod
As I have shown, it's not about "registration and recognition". Gay "marriages" are already recognised under the property relationships acts. It's solely about *registration*.

"imagine a woman with children in a same sex civil union finds that, when some time later her spouse marries a man, the man gets all of the property and superannuation of her former spouse as marriage is held to have higher legal standing than civil unions."

Lemee see if I've got this. So woman1 has children to a guy or guys, then a lesbian relationship with woman2, then woman2 leaves the first, marries a man and woman2 dies. Why would woman2's widower inherit any property of woman1?

Presumably you mean that woman1 died somewhere along the line?

But why could not woman2 solve all these problems by her will?

It may be said that she should not have to deal with it by a deliberate act, since a wife in her position could achieve the same effect by default. But is that really your main argument? Because that's what the whole thing comes down to.

Gays actually have more rights than straights because
a) polygamy is illegal, but there's nothing illegal about multiple simultaneous heterosexual relationships.
b) gay "spouses" can make binding property settlements on the basis of contracts undisturbed by the Family Law Act. But spouses can't, because the Family Court will not hesitate to ovverride them; it won't enforce them on their terms. The effect is to enforce meddling uncertainty over marriages that gays are free of.

That's why I can't see why gays would want to be bound into the marriage and family law regime, other than for symbolic purposes which are not legitimate.

Lego's argument is perfectly valid.

As always, things get confused when we mix up the types of rules. The evolutionary, genetic or natural rules govern the predispositions to human and biological tendencies.

The man made rules of religions and civic obligations try to mitigate, change or create social rejection or acceptance of these tendencies.

They are all interrelated and form the basis of various social fabrics’ of species. The task for each society is to balance the socio-political values to suit the “majority” without discrimination against any “minority”. It is the hard line of other minorities that tend to be the worst discriminators.

Peter Hume wrote:
"Lemee see if I've got this. So woman1 has children to a guy or guys, then a lesbian relationship with woman2, then woman2 leaves the first, marries a man and woman2 dies. Why would woman2's widower inherit any property of woman1? "

Not quite. Woman1 has been a homemaker for woman2 and the children in their family. Woman2 is the bread-winner and accumulates a superannuation and investment portfolio and manages the family finances. Then it goes pear shaped and woman2 leaves and marries a man. When woman2 dies, woman1 and her children try to claim some portion of woman2's estate, but the man would get it all unless the law were to give equal weight to their civil union.

Don't get too hung up on the details. The point is that for every situation involving multiple heterosexual marriages in which marriage registration is needed to protect the parties, one can imagine an equivalent situation involving same sex unions. And they need to have equal legal standing, otherwise one party can escape from the responsibilities of a civil union by getting married.

You can't fix it with wills. The courts can override wills which have unjustly omitted spouses and children, and there are situations when this is needed for same sex marriages too. In my example above, woman2 might have left her estate to her first family, but the man can challenge the will and claim a greater share on the basis that marriage has a superior claim to civil unions.

Dear Lego,

You should differentiate and draw the line between society and government. Being a member of society is voluntary - being subject to state-laws is not. It's therefore OK if society wishes to discriminate because you could simply walk out if you don't like what it does, but you physically cannot walk out of the state-institutions' power, or else they will shoot you.

Suppose you want to marry 5 little boys, 10 dead camels and a grandfather's clock. Suppose you even form your own church which is happy to bless that marriage: society has the right to be disgusted and reject you, but the state has no right to stop you (I didn't mention having sex with the above, did I?).

As I mentioned above, I believe that the state should have nothing to do with marriages in the first place, it should be obliviant to such private associations.

Sauropod
But it is about the details, because they show that gay “marriages” are in no worse position than heterosexual marriages in any question of substance. The argument is solely about the contested symbolical question of governmental registration of homosexual relationships, which can resolve into nothing but an exercise of arbitrary power either way.

In your hypothetical, Woman1 has a remedy
1. in equity under a constructive trust, and/or
2. in statute under the Family Provisions Act
without regard to marriage, heterosexuality or homosexuality.

1. means that, if it would be unconscionable for Woman2 to keep or dispose of property without making fair provision for Woman1, a court will order that Woman2 pay up.

2. means that Woman1 can apply to have Woman2’s will overturned on the grounds that Woman2 had not made fair provision considering their former relationship, Woman1’s contributions, and so on.

Not only that, but if Woman1’s earlier relationship had been a heterosexual marriage, she would be in no different position. Thus it is not true that marriage “has a superior claim to civil unions” in any question of substance, that I know of.

Your argument is no different to the argument before the enactment of the de facto relationships acts, that de facto spouses were hard done-by compared to de jure spouses. But those acts, now broadened to include homosexual and other intimate relationships, have taken the ground from under your feet.

If gays were really concerned about civil rights, equality and social justice, they should be agitating for the decriminalization of bigamists, who are still persecuted with imprisonment, and spare us the faux outrage about their inability to obtain governmental registration of sexual relationships, when such registration should be abolished in any event.

The argument is nothing to do with any question of injustice, and everything to do with the bustling insensitive self-entitlement of the gay lobby trying to cajole and bully-rag everyone else into according a like status to their sexuality that they know very well the population at large has always disagreed with.