>>>> "The decision to not allow a conscience vote on this issue polarises the broader community to either support "the Party that supports gay marriage," or "the Party that opposes amendments to the Marriage Act."

Interesting. Presumably the author thinks the fact that the Liberals ACTUALLY AMENDED the Marriage Act has nothing to do with which party "opposes amendments to the Marriage Act"!

Perhaps the author ought to have written instead that it polarises the broader community to support a democratic party, or a theocratic one.

>>>> "However, as a Catholic (who once trained to be a priest) he should be equally aware of the teaching of the Catholic Church's magisterium that there is no higher moral obligation than "to follow and live according to one's informed conscience."

But you see, allowing a conscience vote on marriage equality does not prevent Abbott from "following and living according to" the rules for Catholics. Even if gay marriage were allowed, Tony Abbott doesn't have to have one!

The problem seems to be that people who make choices informed by religious doctrine always assume that, naturally, EVERYONE should be bound by their religion's rules, whether an adherent or not. Scary stuff lies that way.

Further, the ultimate source of Abbott's religious morality is the premise of the Catholic version of God actually existing! Arguments from religion have an unwarranted privilege in that they don't have to be substantiated. Whereas a strong battle has to be fought and fought for what ought to be common sense (imo, equality!), everything can be opposed by the religious simply on the grounds that "my god said so". I think that's absolutely outrageous!!

Iterestingly, the Australian Christian Lobby has a curious blind spot in their argument from religion... They are always banging on and on about how they must have "freedom OF religion", yet when some churches point out that their religion supports gay marriage, the ACL's "freedom" somehow doesn't apply! Funny innit! :-)

Why doesn't everyone just see it my way, and we'd all get on so much better?! :-)

@david f "I agree with you. Our prime minister lied. I find that completely unacceptable. "

A lie? Or maybe just a "non-core promise". ;-)

Yuyutsu,

You say:

“A church is supposed to be loyal to God alone”.

What do you mean by the adjective ‘loyal’ and by the term ‘God’?

Loyal is a quality, usually proper to servants.

God is someone nobody can see but all can imagine.

But you don’t know what my image of God is and I don’t know what the image of your God is.

So: There is your God and there is my God and a God for each one of us human beings; that is as many Gods as there are people.

Church means assembly of people with common interests.

These people of the church pursue such interests to their benefit at the cost or disfavor of the people who are not of the church.

Their Gods and the gods of those outside the church are not in the game of the two groups.

Gods don’t enter into dirty games.

Well.....talk about stone-age thinkings.

Oh dear:)

CACTUS

Dear Skeptic,

There is no way to define God. Some churches make an attempt to do so, others don't. If they do, then such definitions can only serve as approximations or pointers. I personally can only attempt to define God in the negative: I can only say that there is nothing but God, but some churches have different approaches. This, however, should not matter for the purpose of this discussion.

Being a servant of God is a great honour. It is definitely superior than being a servant of one's ego, of other people or of an organization, including the state or 'the public', even of humanity.

'Loyal' means that one puts the interest (or even the perceived interest) of that which s/he is loyal to above all other interests.

A golf club may also be an assembly of people with common interests. This may be a trick of the English language, but I am sure that you know that I use the word 'Church' in its more common use, rather than for any arbitrary assembly.

The degree to which the beliefs of a particular church correspond with reality may be an interesting topic, but is irrelevant to this particular discussion. All that matters in this context, is that a Church is there to worship God, whatever their notion and experience of God happens to be - otherwise it would not be a Church in the context of this discussion.

Given that a group is a church, coming together to worship God, they should worship and serve God alone (as they best understand Him) - not their own interests. They should worship diligently and never compromise it by shackling themselves to the state's interests by playing dirty games with the state, then becoming obligated or indebted to it as a result. States are secular and ungodly institutions: churches should retain their independence, staying as far away from states as possible, in the same manner as one would avoid snakes or fire.

@Yuyutsu "Being a servant of God is a great honour. It is definitely superior than being a servant of one's ego"

So you believe you're a superior and more honourable person because you're not a slave to your ego?

And you don't see anything at all suspect about that belief?! Hilarious.

;-)