LETMEIN,
If you want a genderless society I suggest you lobby for a referendum to sample public opinion. Im sure women prefer not to use unisex public toilets where men have peed on the seat and floor. Governments currently record births as gender so they can keep a watch on community needs. If you cannot understand the difference of gender it is time you read up a bit or asked your mother.

The Acolyte Rizla,

So now you are telling me that that you had natural human sexual intercourse 5 times in the past week and you are not married. Obviously you are an immoral person without decent social values, as you call her a girl and not your wife and you have no intention of marriage.

The marriage act is NOT marriage! The laws are merely the documentation that protects the marriage relationship between a man and a woman that have committed themselves to a sexual bond for life. Casual sexual encounters violate that bond of marriage and that is called adultery. Obviously you have no lifelong loyalty to the persons with whom you have sex. What right do you have to impose your illicit values on responsible people?

You should stop this soon, Philo, you are starting to confuse yourself.

>>What defines a marriage? “Cleave to thee only, till death do us part” is the essential clause in the marriage vows<<

If this is the "essential clause", where does it mention that cleaving can only apply to heterosexual couples? I know several homosexual couples who cleave like billy-o, and have done so exclusively.

>>The marriage act is NOT marriage!<<

Fair enough. But as The Acolyte Rizla so pertinently asks, if this is your stance on the marriage act, why are you getting your knickers in such a knot about changing it?

>>Stezza, so now you are telling me an artificial transplant of test tube generated female sperm is equivalent to natural human sexual intercourse (marriage)<<

There are so many misconceptions (sorry!) and red herrings in that one sentence, it is clear that you are totally confused. First of all, I doubt that any human being would consider assisted reproduction to be a substitute for sex, one being quite uncomfortable and the other being distinctly pleasurable. And there are millions of people, every day, who clearly do not equate sex with marriage, without harming the fabric of the universe too much.

You should do some research on "marriage through history", and discover for yourself how much your views are coloured by your religious beliefs.

http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html

"In the following centuries, however, marriage came more and more under the influence of the church... theologians increasingly found a religious significance in marriage and eventually even included it among the sacraments."

So you are perfectly entitled to hold the views that you do as being consistent with your religious leanings. What you are not entitled to do, in my opinion, is to lecture others that your religion is the only yardstick by which human behaviour is measured.

Pericles,
I have read and studied the history of marriage and it has always been the natural instinct and agreement between a man and woman to engage in a sexual union. Any other sex is not marriage!
Please identify what has constituted a marriage different to that.

Does...not...compute...

Philo, I'm not sure what sort of logic you employ in your daily life, but I expect better from you than this...

>>I have read and studied the history of marriage and it has always been the natural instinct and agreement between a man and woman to engage in a sexual union. Any other sex is not marriage!<<

You carefully leave the word "marriage" hanging around, close to the "it", hoping that the reader will link to the "instinct".

Clever.

Let's take a closer look.

>>I have read and studied the history of marriage<<

I'll have to take your word for that.

>>...it has always been the natural instinct and agreement between a man and woman to engage in a sexual union.<<

But if you really wanted to be accurate, the sentence should read...

"...it has always been the natural instinct and agreement between a man and woman to engage in sexual union."

Because monogamy is not the "natural instinct" of human beings. It is a social construct. Let's face it, civilization would be very messy indeed if we just went around rutting wherever we could. (I'm talking from the male perspective here. I'm not sure whether female humans "rut", as such...)

The other angle - the "agreement between a man and woman to engage in 'a' sexual union" - is also part of the structure of society. Two people, choosing to spend their lives together, and making the commitment to do so. If we agree on that, what possible objection could you have to those two folk being of the same gender?

>>Any other sex is not marriage!<<

While it may be quite true in your own mind that "other sex" cannot be covered with the term "marriage", that has nothing to do with the legal issues addressed in the Marriage Act.

Nor, I should like to point out, does it hold true that marriage is purely determined by sex. Would it make a difference to your approach, for example, if the law was changed so that celibate homosexuals could be considered "married"?

Didn't think so.

Perciles,
Please identify what has constituted a marriage recognised by society other than a union of a man and a woman.