Sorry Jon J, but the times have changed. Did you not read the links in my post? Christians are being forced to support gay marriage/ rights under threat of job loss, suspension, etc. It's what practising Christians have known would be coming for years and know it's gonna get a lot worse if current trends hold. The era of saying to conservatives that gay marriage won't effect you is over...it's legalisation is obviously beginning to write Christians out of society, according to the evidence.

However, if government involvement in marriage (meaning the govt. would not know or care who is married to whom), abortion and education was removed, I think we'd all be cool with it and go about our business privately.

Dear TRUTHNOW78, if that is your real name ...

Marriage in Australia as governed by the Marriage Act of 1961 is a completely secular act, as it should be. There are plenty of religions in Australia that continue to celebrate their own rituals of marriage ... including Christians ... and will continue to do so, but they must be registered under the Marriage Act to be LEGAL!

Everyone who gets married in Australia, be it in a high cathedral, synagogue, temple, on a beach or in a registry office MUST say the same Commonwealth vows and sign Commonwealth documents, solemnized by an authorised Celebrant who recites words from the Marriage Act.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN MARRIAGE ... get used to it ... it's been law in Australia since 1961. Now, we just have to amend that law to make it fair to all.

Your missing my point, Big Guy. Where gay marriage has been legalised Christians have lost or are losing their religious freedom. If this is the only outcome of legalising SS marriage then the Marriage Act of 1961 needs to be abolished and all goverment involvement in marriage removed.

The Separation of Church and State ethos is mainly to protect the Church from the State. Clearly, SS marriage is going to take the State to the church door and beyond unless adjustments are made

Marriage of the same gender is not a matter of equality or rights as gays claim. It has never been and shall never be. Contractually the marriage vows express their responsibility as husband to his wife and wife to her husband and to their family. Any other configuration, eg same gender is merely a pseudo marriage. Marriage is not culminated by a male inserting his penis into the anus of another male. That merely is a perversion of a biological reality. Family is only born from the union of a man and a woman.

The vows and signing the marriage register are not marriage - marriage is the sexual union of a man and a woman, sanctioned by the public vows and contractual agreement to engage legitametly in sex.

Two persons of the same sex do not form a genetic family. They will never be biologically a family or a complementary unit that will produce children.

*Whool5hit!* (pretending to sneeze) TRUTH NOW ... an oxymoron?

The separation of church and state was just the opposite ... the People got tired of being abused and burned at the stake in the name of Christianity, so they made laws that said the bible thumpers and bead rattlers no longer had a say in government.

I want to vote for my leaders in a democracy, not rely on someone's imaginary friend to tell them what to do. It's Demos Kratos ... People Power, not Deos Kratos ... god Power.

Ironically, the term "faggot" came from the fact that the Church used to truss up homosexuals and cats and put them amongst the kindling to make the fire burn hotter for the main attraction tied to the stake.

Unfortunately, burning the cats caused the Plagues and most of the homosexuals were priests. Maybe this is karma.

So, who's going to use up their 10 letters first today?

Big Guy? That's kind of familiar ..

Thanks for the article Peter. A nice, balanced, summary of the issue that proves not all clergy in this debate are one-eyed ideologues.

I hope Australians are willing to embrace a broader definition of marriage that includes gays. As you suggest, in the case of women's rights, progressive change is possible.