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The Forum > Article Comments > Same sex (same old) marriage > Comments

Same sex (same old) marriage : Comments

By Kellie Toole, published 20/9/2013

However, surely in a modern liberal democracy the question of 'should gay couples be able to legally marry?' is less pertinent than the question 'should heterosexual couples be able to legally marry?'

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"It is now the time to end, not extend, the privilege of the legal institution of marriage in order to recognise true equality by abolishing the privilege of certain citizens on the basis of relationship status."

Quite so; but you forgot to say that since that's not going to happen in our lifetimes, the next best thing is to extend the legal right to marry to any and all consenting persons over the minimum age.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 20 September 2013 7:15:41 AM
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They even had to steal our word gay & desecrate it for crying out loud. Now they want to steal our word marriage as well & pervert it. By all means do what you think you have to do but do it behind closed doors, don't throw it into our faces all the time.
Posted by individual, Friday, 20 September 2013 8:57:53 AM
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Bravo. Great article. The best I have seen in 5 years on OLO.

The State should not be in the business of registering private consensual sexual relationships, nor of conferring privileges on some and disabilities on others, simple as that.

While the whole debate turns on the notion that marriage is whatever the gumment says it is, this is a completely unhistorical notion. The first Marriage Act was not enacted until the 19th century. But obviously marriage existed before then.

The common law *recognised* (but did not claim to constitute) marriage from about the 13th century until the Marriage Act. It took its concept of marriage largely from canon law, which is where the one-man-one-woman bit came in. But obviously marriage existed hundreds and thousands of years before the English common law, or even the canon law.

In any event, why should we be ruled in our most private and intimate relations by the moral precepts of long-dead mediaeval monks of *the* most sex-negative religion in the history of the world?

Therefore this line is not correct:
"This special status [marriage] can only be conferred on couples through the legal recognition of their relationship by the state."

In the absence of statutory, or even common law recognition of monogamous heterosexual marriage, it would most likely attain the same special and orthodox social status simply by virtue of being the predominant sexual and reproductive arrangement of the majority.

But that is not any reason to confine everyone else to the same box, who do *not* choose it!

Obviously all the same arguments for "marriage equality" of homosexuals apply equally to the marginalised sexuality of the polyamourous, and even moreso, because gays are no longer at risk of being imprisoned for their sexuality, as the polygamists are.

The start should be the repeal the criminal law against bigamy and polygamy.

Then the Property Relationships (formerly known as the De Facto Relationships) Acts, which actively impose the status of marriage on people who never asked for or voluntarily undertook it!

The Marriage Act and the Family Law Act should be next to go.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Friday, 20 September 2013 10:22:54 AM
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We already do argue if heterosexual couples can or should marry!
Just try and marry a Christian to a Muslim, and see the resistance in some circles, or witness the compulsion to accept Islamic labeling.
Not all that long ago, this result would have been quite familiar in the christian tradition! Indeed, not all that long ago mixed race marriages would have been equally illegal or ostracized!
I believe it is time for the usual obfuscation to end, and for those with a powerful religious bent and or self conferred judgmental rights, to get their obnoxious noses out of other consenting adults bedrooms. [Get your own backyard sorted before you start worrying about the neighbor's]
If we were bound by esoteric Christian tradition, there would be no church ceremony, just a formal handover of a bride and the exchange of wealth or sheep or cattle along with the consumption of much wine?
Same sex couples would have just kept company, much in the manner of Jesus and his Apostles? Monks and or Nuns in Monasteries?
Perhaps if some of these people had been allowed to marry the partner of choice, we wouldn't have seen the emergence of all those horrid stories of endless centuries old, child sex and or physical abuse?
Church ceremonies or marriage/holy wedlock are a fairly recent man made revenue raising phenomenon, not much more than 200 years old?
If any religion feels honor bound to refuse to marry same sex couples, that ought to remain their right, as are their preferred religious convictions, be they founded on fantasy or verifiable fact!
Nonetheless, same sex couples ought to have the same rights as any other loving and committed couple.
This selective discrimination in law, has to finally end!
If we need to sort something, then maybe it is the inherently flawed or crossed wiring, that creates same sex attraction in the first place?
Or indeed, any other seemingly unnatural sexual aberration?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 20 September 2013 11:44:25 AM
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Marriage is a moral and social construct rooted in the ancient mysognist texts where women and children were regarded as chattels. The utterly immoral and dysfunctional Augustine formalised the Church's rituralisation and dogmatisation of that ancient practise.

Marriage in the traditional form, one on one, whole of life, is rarely successful today. It will become less workable in future.

What is required is a reassessment of the morality surrounding relationships and particularly a rejection of the tradition marriage as the epitome and ultimate relationship aspiration.

Cheers. The author of this article is on that pathway.
Posted by imajulianutter, Friday, 20 September 2013 1:48:07 PM
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I couldn't agree more. Thanks for this article!

Dear Jon J.,

<<since that's not going to happen in our lifetimes, the next best thing is to extend the legal right to marry to any and all consenting persons over the minimum age.>>

For those of us who are really old, this may not happen in our lifetime, but for those of us who are in our middle-ages and younger, it probably will.

The very pressure for "gay marriage" is able to turn the tide and make the word 'marriage' and all its derivatives be erased from all Australian legislation (Saudi Arabia will take somewhat longer, I suspect), so let's not dissipate this wonderful energy by adding another second-best legal patch.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 20 September 2013 2:19:55 PM
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