Bravo. One can only hope that the despotic religious right will wane in influence from here on. I still cannot understand why a true Christian would want to curtail another's relationship...turn the other cheek and all that. The only passage in the Bible that mentions homosexuality brings it up to make the point that while some things seem bad, to persecute on that basis is far worse!
Given the behaviour of priests (either committing or protecting paedophilia) in every country of the world for the last few decades you would think they would be OK with it...or maybe the fascination with same sex only applies to powerless pre-pubescent people?
As priests in the US say things like "beat the gay out of your child" and the rest of the church remains silent...the discrepancy between their claimed virtues and actual behaviour is stark and obvious.
Finger pointing Christians need to read-up on their Jesus quotes and support what He would want...not the church authorities.

Maybe Rodney is right and we could celebrate. After we've finished with the Gay marriage thing we should consider lowering the age of consent another few notches. And if cousins are ok, why not half-brothers and sisters? Let's go the whole hog: our mothers as well?

And I just can't understand why we limit marriage to only two people.

Actually, why does government regulate relationships at all?

When we've finished off with relationships we should move on to killing our babies and old people.

Hooray for progress.

See above for hysterical overreaction.

Gay marriage is not a religious issue at all. Pretending it is is just a way of deflecting attention from the poor quality of the argument in favour if it. Gay marriage is an oxymoron. That it is even taken seriously shows how powerful postmodernism has become. It is as ridiculous as a vegetarian complaining that his equal rights have been infringed because he is denied the right to eat meat. Society has the concept of two people of the opposite sex forming an exclusive and life-long union. It has a word for this concept. The word is marriage. If a gay person wants to marry, he or she can; i.e., her or she can forma an exclusive and lifelong union with a person of the opposite sex. If, as is more likely, he or she wants to form an exclusive and life-long union with a person of the same sex, he or she can. If he or she wants legal recognition of that union, he or she ought to have it. But the word to describe such a union is not marriage. It’s all very simple. But we have to endure the cries of victimhood because some people demand that the word currently used to describe the thing they would hate to have be used to describe the different thing that they actually want. If I, a vegetarian, demanded that vegetables be called meat, I’d be regarded as silly. If I called those who opposed my demand bigots, I would be regarded as nasty as well.

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A simple look at the QLD, NSW, Victorian election and current polls shows that at the people are either against 'gay'marriage or indifferent. The gay lobby has always been over represented in Parliament.

btw Ozandy most of the abuse by priests on kids are homosexual acts. I know its not pc to say so but it says alot.

I am highly sceptical about the so called "disproportionate influence of the religious right" for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's simplistic. I might be religious, and I might hold a few socially conservative positions- but the term "right" as it is commonly understood goes much further than that. For example, I support the campaign asking Gillard to contribute 0.5% to foreign aid. Doesn't that make me a left leaner on that issue? Left/Right are terms that shed more heat than light and thus we should dispose of them.

Secondly, where's the regard for the obvious fact that there are many Aussies who are not extremely observant in a religious sense, but who nonetheless largely concur with the moral framework promoted by groups like the ACL? People like Croome point out the well-organised lobbying of the ACL, and then assume that they are having an influence that is out of kilter with the number of highly religious people. Maybe so, but it isn't only the religiously observant who support the traditional definition of marriage, or who don't want children exposed to sexualisation, etc etc.