David G - Can't they see that children no longer know what is right but are exposed to all manner of weird relationships during their formative years to say nothing about easily obtained pornography?

Did you see that SMH / Fairfax story a few weeks back claiming its now illegal for teachers in the NSW school system to tell rug-rats being straight is 'normal' ??

What is "Normal" !

Daffy Duck - Meanwhile back in the time of the Iraq and refugees on boats (manufactured crisis) one of the coalition Senators called Howard a lying rodent.

How unfair, the Senator should have described the clown as a DIS-honorable lying rodent.

Yuyutsu - That's no problem for me because marriages are not taking place in Queensland (or in any other Australian state) - they take place in heaven!

I bet if you try entering 'heaven' into the departmental computer it will spit out 'not known' !! Interestingly, there isn't a biblical pro-forma for marriage, only one 'a man shall leave his father', consequently they seem to have been almost 'registry office' events initially. The first mention of wedding feasts for commoners is much later although one would assume the kings of the day did a bit of serious partying. I presume either the greeks or the romans dreamed up the 'bigger than Ben Hur' style affairs with every relative on planet earth, so it was probably commonplace by the first century. Mind you the jews wouldn't have been backward in finding ways to make a profit out of whatever.

Rhrosty - the overwhelming bulk of the parliamentary Labour party are in favour of true equality

Yeah, the 'some pigs are more equal than others' kind

EmBeth - Statistics show that 65% of Australians are for Gay Marriage

By that reckoning, two out of every three people one meets (on average) are either homosexuals or sympathizers. Hmmmmm, there are about five hundred people in my community, and a grand total of four lesbians (absolutely none of the male AC-DC set). I'm only aware of one lone person who wouldn't happily make pointed suggestions about the lesbians moving a long way away should they get out of line. Seems thats a tad lower than your statistics, but then I always did think that Benjamin Disraeli hit the nail on the head.

Kipp - What is "Normal"

In the context of the posting it doesn't require a reader to have an awful lot of marbles to figure it out

jason84 - Poll shows support of gay marriage at high

Where is the supporting information like exactly HOW MANY were polled, WHO was polled, WHERE they were polled, WHAT they were asked and so on.
For all we know, an Australian reporter went to a gay bar in their lunchtime and spoke to the two sitting beside him / her at the bar. Even if the thing was run halfway professionally, there are still the issues of representative sample & bias in the questioning. Reminds me of a statistics course at university that was commonly known as 'how to cheat and lie with figures'. Is it any wonder Ben Disraeli had a rather jaundiced attitude toward statisticians ??

Just as there is great controversy about issues
like abortion, there seems to be the same arising
from same-sex marriage. Some people seem to view
that there is only one "right" marriage form, and
they of course naturally interpret any change as
heralding the doom of the whole institution. To those
people their view of marriage is self-evidently right
and proper, and usually God-given as well.

It is important therefore to recognise that marriage is
a man-made institution, and like any other institution,
does and has inevitably change through time.
Today there is an immense range in marriage, family, and
kinship patterns.

Same-sex marriage will happen in this country because the
greater majority of Australians support it. Politicians
will have to come to terms with the wishes of their electorates.

In a secular society such as Australia professes to be, a society
that has secular government and no official or state
religion and where governments are supposed to treat all
citizens as equal, where religious laws have no legal status
it stands to reason that the insitution of marriage cannot be
designated only for select members of our society.

It is time for a Referendum on the issue.