Children of divorced parents have fathers and mothers even if they do not live together.

Jim Wallace was also on TV spruiking this fatherless line as contributing to the London riots. One speaker at today's rally against SSM even stooped to likening SSM to perverse ideas of marriage to children (as the slippery slope to pedophilia). This is ironic given some religious organisations have hidden pedophilia from the outside world, allowing pedophiles to roam free among children, and moving them on to another parish when this barbarity reoccurs.

How can marraige between two consenting adults of the same sex be the same as marrying a child? While many religions do not condone marriage to children, the many publicised situations where that happens is among some of the more perverse religious sects.

Could some children be better off without the fathers that fate handed them. Widows and widowers have been around for centuries with no such fanciful conclusions being made. Poverty, racism and disadvantage is likely more relevant to rioting than issues of fatherlessness.

A break down of marriages between heterosexuals is equally disruptive if handled poorly. These decisions are usually mutual and more often than not involve both parents in the children's lives post-divorce.

I am all for people working harder to save their marriages but the reality is that it does not always work. Sometimes it is better for all parties, including children to be separated from hostilities (minor to extreme) than sit in witness to it on a regular basis.

Marriage is about love and commitment. These values do not belong to any one group of people.

Christians are entitled to express their views but they do not have the right to dictate and force their will onto others who may not agree with that worldview. Even if SSM were legalised, Christians, Atheists and others who do not condone SSM do not have to participate.

Both Wallace and Marsh seem like nice guys, why do they persist with this anti-gay, anti-women rhetoric, which stands in opposition to my understanding of what the majority of Christians stand for. Love.

...There is an argument to support a coup d’état in this country, of which the moral decline led by unrestrained homosexuality is preeminent.

Unfortunately it not very surprising that while we are engaged in a serious debate about the possible causes of real and disturbing social phenomena such as those that have been presenting themselves in the UK recently, others are more interested in indulging in gutter comments about various contributors.

Regarding the post mentioning Jesus and the other one regarding being ignorant about history, anyone who actually bothers to read the history written about him by eye witnesses clearly sees that while he meaningfully engaged with the socially unacceptable of his time he did not just ignorantly embrace all their lifestyles. He impacted those he engaged with, for both the individual and common good. For example I would love to know what he wrote in the dirt that so embarrassed a murderous crowd from stoning a prostitute to death; but in the same situation he was also able to sensitively but effectively challenge the prostitute to discontinue her previous lifestyle. I doubt that he would have advocated then (or would now) values that our society does; (to use the previous example) values such as 'live and let live' for the executioners and safe sex practises for the prostitute.

I for one believe that the significant issues we face as a society are worthy of far deeper and sober examination than can be provided by superficial 'solutions' such as throwing stones or handing out condoms.

It is not surprising that those commenters who disagree with the article barely provided any reason for their disagreement. "You're making a bare assertion" doesn't do much as a counter argument. Don't label it "bare", just state why it is incorrect.

Meanwhile I keep seeing these 'Equal Marriage' posters everywhere and keep hearing about these 'equal love' rallies. When are people going to realise that marriage will never be truly equal until anyone can marry anyone at any time? Marriage is between a man and a woman only, and that's not "equal" to gays and lesbians. But marriage is also only for two people and only for those over 18, which is not equal to those polygamists and 17 year olds who want to get married. The Gay PR Lobby is just hijacking the word "Equal" to make the other side look like baddies. Don't be fooled people. If you really want equal marriage then let's follow the Afghani's and allow child marriages and polygamy. Otherwise we'll still have exclusivism and unequal marriage, and we couldn't have that now could we! How politically incorrect of us.

Formersnag- three of your examples citing evidence that a 'divorce culture' causes riots are
Cronulla- race riots responding to abusive behavior by an outside ethnicity towards the locals
Redfern- disadvantaged and stigmatized minority group reeling from a death of a minor resulting from a police chase
Macquarie Fields- disadvantaged and (less) stigmatized white minority reeling from a death resulting in a police chase

And you can guarantee that many of the youths come from two-parent households.

Secondly- how is 'fault' relevant to divorce? If a spouse is unhappy with their partner, automatically one or both are at 'fault' for either causing the other spouse to be unsatisfied- or the unsatisfied spouse themselves for failing to be satisfied with the marriage- and thus divorcable. In most countries assets are investigated and actually returned to their rightful owners, with 50/50 joint-purchases divided only.
Should we simply force people to not be allowed to divorce people their marriage isn't working with, unless they give us compelling reason to permit them to?
What if they remained officially 'married' but moved to separate houses and took separate partners?
Is a better environment for children where both parents clearly hate each other and regret marrying each other, argue or insult each other all the time?

Trav, Tuesday, 16 August 2011 10:28:55pm

Bare assertions are ones without substance - they are propositions (or statements) without supporting information, evidence, statistics, or proof.

There is not much more to say.

References to cold marriage and polygamy, in a discussion about same-sex marriage, is unnecessary red herring, and a slippery-slope fallacy.