Saltpetre

If you are not homophobic, why such opposition to people who love each other formalising their relationship via marriage?

Personally, I don't see marriage as the right choice for me, but I am free to marry if I wish. I do not see my personal views of marriage as being applicable to everyone else, people have the right to choose marriage if they want, regardless of sex or sexual preference.

In summary, Saltpetre, don't piss on my leg and tell me its just raining (thanks be to Judge Judy).

JoM

Would I win a bet if you were also NOT in favour of 'racial' intermarriage, for example caucasian woman having children with a negroid male?

Suze

I prefer men, but have had some major crushes on women. I believe that sexuality can be rather fluid for some people. Generally speaking bi-sexual people annoy just about everyone, you'd think gays and lesbians would be more tolerant but they turn out to be just as biased as hetereosexuals in many aspects.

Ammonite,

I will respond to your question with a question. Do you think we should alter every law or the Constitution itself to accommodate every minority viewpoint? What will you want next - to legalise pedophilia? Heroin? Meth? Ice? Cocaine? (I figure I already know your view on marijuana.)

Not everyone wants to conform to normative standards or mores, so, do you expect all responsible people to just drop to the lowest common denominator?

You have pushed by button, so yes, I have no problem with gays, I just draw the line at recognising gay unions as "marriage". If that is homophobic, then, Ok, I will be one from now on.

Ok, I'm conservative, and no, I don't like Bob Brown as a politician, although as an environmentalist he was a very solid citizen.

I am for the majority view on sex, marriage, kindness to animals and care for the environment, and I don't have a great deal of time for those who just want to have their cake and eat it to. I would be harsher on welfare and on criminal law if I had my way, and I do believe in the death penalty. What else do you want to know?

At the end of this, I even think I'm beginning not to like women, but I am not one to tar all with the same brush.

Ammonite, I'm not Caucasian, ask an Armenian, a Chechen or a Georgian that question if you want an opinion.
I'm White.
If someone wants brown children then they're clearly not White are they?
So I really couldn't care less.
White women and Men have White babies, non White couples have non White babies, that's the world as we know it.
Unless of course you're saying racial identity is only about skin colour, which is shaky ground, ask Andrew Bolt.
You're also trying to paint me, along with Saltpetre as something we're not.
I'm asking basic questions about the "Gay Marriage" or "Equal Love" movement, which, as we know is made up largely of non homosexuals.
See reform is not something one "demands", it's something that is granted by a higher authority.
Change is a demand but it can simply be effected by..well...changing things.
Are the "gays" just Liberal reformers going cap in hand to their leaders or authentic agents of change?
As for affection...yeah they're affecting plenty of things from all over the activist spectrum (boom boom), it's not really doing much good though.
To most people this is a trivial issue anyway.

Dear Saltpetre,

The following website may clarify a few things:

http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/case.htm

The Case for Equal Marriage.

The article states:

"No group of Australians should be systematically excluded from any legal institution let alone one as central to our society as legal marriage. It must be open to all Australians regardless of their sexual orientation. Some day, same-sex couples in Australia will have the legal right to marry. That is inevitable. As with every major human rights advance, from the abolition of slavery to allowing women to vote, future generations will look back and wonder how anyone could have opposed such a basic human right."

It's an interesting article - well worth a read.

...and in the interests of balance, the following:
http://www.marriageresourcesforclergy.com/site/Articles/articles011.htm

It's important to state that serious activists opposed to homosexual marriage produce next to no research or information themselves, all their facts and figures come from the work of either gay advocacy groups or other reputable academic studies.
The fact that I sourced this from a particular site should not be taken as an indication that I necessarily share their viewpoint, as I said, balance.

Lexi,

From your link:

"The exclusion of same-sex relationships from marriage and the invention of a different word to describe our unions represents gays and lesbians, and our relationships in particular, as deviant and abnormal, and as less worthy than heterosexual unions."

(Jay's link tends to confirm that gay union is less worthy.)

"In Australia, same-sex couples, and all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons for that matter, still suffer under the weight of stigma and prejudice." "These attitudes of prejudice are reinforced – and given State sanction - by discriminatory laws."

"Civil unions can provide some or all of the rights and obligations of civil marriage. AME has no objection to civil unions as a supplement to marriage, but as long as we are denied the equal right to marry, alternative regimes do not fix the discrimination."

My response: Gays having the right to "marriage" can do little if anything to alter societal prejudice, but rather, "gays" pushing for "marriage" is far more likely to alienate many more than it will impress.

Extracts from Jay's link: (Tend to strongly support my conviction that gay union is far from "marriage".)

"Married Couples
· A 2001 National Center for Health Statistics study on marriage and divorce statistics reported that 66 percent of first marriages last ten years or longer, with fifty percent lasting twenty years or longer."

"Male Homosexual Relationships
The 2003-2004 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census surveyed the lifestyles of 7,862 homosexuals. Of those involved in a "current relationship," only 15 percent describe their current relationship as having lasted twelve years or longer, with five percent lasting more than twenty years."

"Married couples
· A nationally representative survey of 884 men and 1,288 women published in the Journal of Sex Research found that 77 percent of married men and 88 percent of married women had remained faithful to their marriage vows.

· A 1997 national survey appearing in The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States found that 75 percent of husbands and 85 percent of wives never had sexual relations outside of marriage."
TBC>