A splendid article, endeavouring to move the debate to a more realistic and honest level - and away from the essentially emotive and emotional.

Can you legislate how people 'feel', can you legislate to reverse an obvious truth - to make black, white, or green into yellow - can you legislate 'equality', or 'fairness', 'happiness' or 'reality'? You may try, but can it really make a difference?

Any effort to ban 'discrimination' could never alter the fact that people are all different, each an individual, with an individual mind, body, 'heart' (sense of 'being'), and 'heterosexual' or otherwise.

Gays are different, and are not the norm, and in advanced societies are accepted for what they are, but no amount of sermonizing will make them the same as the majority - as no legislation can remove a disability or cure a disease, or ensure a long and happy life for everyone, nor a happy, secure and committed marriage.

In some sense all may be equal, but this is an illusion, for a street-sweeper is not a captain of industry, a woman not a man, a baby not an adult. In relationships there is no guarantee of 'equality', but rather so often a reveling in difference, and no-one can legislate 'compatibility'.

Marriage is a state of mind, but also of 'being'. It may be based on love, or security, attraction, subservience, domination, or convenience. No perfect formula. But there is a common understanding of marriage, based in nature (and legislated in our case to two parties), and no amount of legislation can alter this general understanding of this contract, this partnership.

So, legislate away, but it can make no difference to this basic reality, but only create an illusion of 'equality' where none can realistically exist.

It is not discrimination to accept that someone is gay, but it is discrimination to deem that they are absolutely the same as everyone else. We live in a bipolar world, of men and women, and of heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals. Vivre la difference, and though we may be 'equal' we can never be 'the same'.

What is needed is a referendum, one made a part of the next election. A simple YES/NO is all that is required to the question: should gays be able to marry?

The results will put the noisy, pushy, take-no-prisoners gay community into a tizzy and may cause some of them to question their sexual preferences.

Another question could be: Should gays be able to enter into civil unions? Mainstream society probably would say 'YES' to this proposal although it can't be guaranteed.

If the gay community thinks that forcing changes to the laws will lead to them being fully accepted by mainstream society, they are completely deluded.

I find the image of two men kissing extremely nauseating and will always do so regardless of what the law says!

Pericles.
Ah yes, all the best people support "Gay" marriage, Hillary Clinton,Barrack Obama, David Cameron, Francois Hollande, not a warmonger or imperialist among them!

Sorry champ, strawmanning and creating false contradictions doesn't work, Gay marriage is just a relatively benign part of the globalist/imperialist agenda,just as Anti Smoking campaigns and cancer research were part of the Nazis'imperialist agenda.
Hitler wanted to draw all the best people of Europe to his new European capital Germania and from there create a new ruling class for Europe and it's dominions with Germanic values and Germanic ideas to be the basis of all those societies. The Western powers want to do exactly the same thing utilising Western values, the only difference is that their "Germania" is Manhattan.
Hitler envisioned Aryan man as the new ruler of the globe, the Soviets dreamed of Soviet man,the Westerners have Western man, same worldview, different ideologies and different tactics.

For the record, I'm no longer opposed to "Gay" marriage and I've never been "Anti Gay", I think the marriage equality movement is stupid, I think the public figures who support it are self serving and at the upper end of the scale of perfidy we have the David Camerons and Hillary Clinton's.
As noted by another poster the number of people who will take same sex spouses will be tiny, it'll be hundreds of couples at first, maybe a few thousand in the years following ratification.
It's no big deal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbgU8rxU5iU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QLt6EO3k28

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Dear Constance,

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You wrote:

"Here's some interesting insights in Der Spiegel regarding what's recently happened with the leftist socialist government in France who quickly installed the same-sex ruling without consulting or debating it with it's people."

Televised debates and street demonstrations are both national sports in France. I have been living in Paris for nearly half a century now and I can assure you that not a week goes by without a debate on "marriage for all" as they call it.

Government ministers often participate in these televised debates alongside advocates and opponents of whatever happens to be the subject, and this was no exception.

The subject has been literally thrashed to death but they're still not satisfied and are pursuing it into heaven or hell or wherever, though the game is over, the lights are extinguished, and all the players have gone home.

The debate in the National Assembly leading up to the final vote lasted 136 hours and 46 minutes.

The final vote by the people's democratically elected national representatives was 331 for, 225 against and 10 abstentions, making a total of 566 votes. This followed standard procedure whereby for any bill to become law, it must be accepted in exactly the same terms and conditions (including amendments) by both houses of parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate.

The "marriage for all" bill was first debated and approved by the National Assembly. It then went to the Senate where it was debated and amended before being voted. It was subsequently resubmitted to the National Assembly which, after further debate, by its final vote, accepted the bill in its amended form.

It thus became law.

The difference between France and Germany in these matters is more of a cultural nature: the Germans arrive at a national consensus through negotiation; the French win or lose by knock-out as a result of street riot and confrontation.

The former are Teutonic. The latter are Latin.

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Dear Luciferase,

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You wrote:

"The State, on the other hand, should stay out of the way and the 2004 amendment of the 1961 Commonwealth of Australia Marriage Act 1961 to include “Marriage, means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life." should be rescinded."

I suggest the text be modified to read: "Marriage, means the union of two persons to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life".

Otherwise, Luciferase, I see we are on the same wave length.

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Dear Saltpetre,

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You wrote:

"A splendid article, endeavouring to move the debate to a more realistic and honest level - and away from the essentially emotive and emotional."

The author not only moved the debate away from the "emotive and emotional", he also moved it away from the problem: religion.

The author identifies the problem as being the enforcement of "civil rights". He considers "It is this message – not bigotry – that motivates much of the opposition to gay marriage."

In one of my previous posts (page 5 of this thread), I asked him to provide evidence of his claim. I am waiting for his response..

You also wrote:

" ... can you legislate 'equality', or 'fairness', 'happiness' or 'reality'? You may try, but can it really make a difference?"

Yes, it can and we know it. That is why there is so much opposition to the legalisation of "same-sex marriage".

Then you wrote:

"Any effort to ban 'discrimination' could never alter the fact that people are all different ... Gays are different, and are not the norm ... all may be equal, but this is an illusion ... it can ... only create an illusion of 'equality' where none can realistically exist ... though we may be 'equal' we can never be 'the same".

You have hammered that one to death, Saltpetre, but as the French say: "You just smashed down an open door". Nobody disagrees with you.

Nobody is suggesting that people should be equal. It is about equal rights.

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