The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Let the people decide on gay 'marriage' > Comments

Let the people decide on gay 'marriage' : Comments

By David van Gend, published 31/10/2013

Changing the definition of marriage, which has lasted from time immemorial, is not an exercise in human rights and equality; it is an exercise in de-authorising the Judaeo-Christian influence in our society.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. ...
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. All
Can someone please tell me why the government should be registering people's private sexual relationships?

Also if the gays are really motivated by a desire for marriage equality, how come they aren't equally arguing for marriage equality of all those other categories of love and sexuality who are currently unable to register their relationships as marriages?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Thursday, 31 October 2013 2:35:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Wm Trevor

If we truly think that marriage exists for the sake of raising children, and only for that purpose, it is not enough to forbid parents from divorcing. We should also require unmarried parents to wed (in these days of DNA testing “it’s not mine” is no excuse, yet about a third of children nowadays are born “out of wedlock”, as they used to say) and revoke marriage certificates when wives pass childbearing age without breeding.

Or … we can recognise that marriage never was, and certainly is not now, only about raising children.

David f has skewered the Judeo-Christian fallacy quite nicely.

On the issue of whether people are “born” homosexual, it is not necessary to point to proof of a hormonal or genetic cause to claim that sexual orientation is inherent. Science cannot explain why I am left-handed, but I was most certainly “born that way”. Most importantly, it is now clear that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice or repairable deviation from the “normal” that can be rectified by remedial measures as might be the case with a cleft palate or club foot. It is intrinsic to someone’s personhood and identity, and to try to “correct” it is as great a perversion as trying to make a straight person gay
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 31 October 2013 2:38:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tony,

Don't shake your head to much as it can be a bit dangerous.
I know that the majority of Australians favour the allowing of same sex marriages because the Greens, among others, have made such a claim and it would never do to doubt them, would it?

What's to fear about asking the people?
Posted by Is Mise, Thursday, 31 October 2013 3:06:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The author claim,s that the children of married homosexuals would not have both a mother and a father. Seems he needs a biology lesson. They must have one of each. Whether or not one of those people is a part of the childs life also is not related to marriage. My sister is a lesbian in a long term committed relationship. She has two children. These children, fathered by a homosexual man spend every weekend with their father and his partner. They most certainly have a mother and a father. In fact they have two mothers and two fathers.
The author fails to mention how preventing a homosexual couple from getting married will ensure that any children they might produce will have both a mother and a father.
Its hard to imagine a pair of committed homosexuals saying "well we can't get married as gays, so we had better change ourselves into heterosexuals before we think about having any children."
In any case the vast majority of fatherless children are born to heterosexual women. I think the author is simply dressing up his distaste for homosexuality as concern for child welfare, when in fact he has no such concern.
Posted by Rhys Jones, Thursday, 31 October 2013 4:36:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Is that going to be the new standard that any new idea has to have a super majority in all states to pass?

Would womens rights have got that level of support? there are still many Christ-stains who oppose treating women as equals.

God bothers have nothing to offer the modern world other than hate.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Thursday, 31 October 2013 5:01:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dr van Gend’s “children’s” rights” ploy is far too weak to cover for the cult from which he seeks to resist the incoming tide of recognition of same-sex marriage. How many children are going to be born to same-sex couples, for heaven’s sake!

Dr van Gend made it quite clear what he was on about: defence of a dominant role for a variant of Christianity in Australia’s public life. It is noteworthy that he put forward as “wise[r]” John Howard’s view that this dominant role is only common sense. That is the same “Christian” who treacherously ignored the Commandment against bearing false witness in lying Australia into invasion of a sovereign country ( aggression, top of the list of war crimes) and admit later that his purpose was to cosy up to America’s Coalition of the Lying.

It is not surprising that Dr van Gend echoed the public performance of Pastor Matt Prater (whose bigotry was written all over his face) to insult the Prime Minister, and all homosexual people, and all people who are not homosexual but have the decency not to insult or discriminate against others because they are. Prater’s theocratic diatribe (to which Dr van Gend incautiously supplied a hyperlink) was a repudiation of our species' millennia of struggle to evolve into creatures of reason in the teeth of the likes of van Gend and Prater who have throughout recorded history coerced acceptance of their faith-based diktat.

The marriage equality struggle is not one for the right to same sex relationships: that has already long been achieved. It is asking the nation to be prepared to recognise these relationships in the same way that we recognise heterosexual relationships. Such recognition confined to a single state or territory might well clash with the Constitution and would be of little value: the most likely ultimate outcome would have to be recognition throughout Australia or none until a nationwide change gained acceptance.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 31 October 2013 5:10:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. ...
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy