Dear Onthebeach,

Good on you, excellent posts!

Dear plantagenet,

Please don't confuse between Marriage and "Legal Marriage". They got nothing to do with each other.

Marriage in the true sense is a wonderful thing, so it must be Legal Marriage that you described as "intrinsically dangerous and expensive occupation which should not be visited on anyone".

Government should not push its dirty claws into our private loving relationships.

I am all for marriage equality: that everyone of any gender (whether they even have a gender) may freely marry any one(s) of any other gender(s), but let it have nothing to do with the state and let no legal records or documents be made about it.

In fact, even one's gender, if there is such a thing, should not be registered by the state in the first place. Who gave them a right to look in our underpants?

Dearest Yuyutsu

This whole issue of gay marriage (now under the guise of "marriage equality") is precisely about Legal Marriage under State and Federal laws.

Yours in anthrax

Pete

yep 'equality ' for a small percentage of people choosing a lifestyle while complete child abuse for kids being denied a mother or father by the social engineers.

ASHES JOKES

Not to diminish the seriousness of the article. The following is slightly Off Topic but an essential List of Anti-Pom Ashes Jokes. After years of losing to the Poms we can now rub their noses in it. Enjoy :)

1) What do you call an English cricketer with 100 by his name? A bowler.

2) Why can't the English open bottles? Because they don't have any openers.

3) What do you call an Englishman with a bottle of champagne in his hand? A waiter.

4) What do you call a world class Englishman? Retired.

5) What is the main function of the English coach? To transport the team from the hotel to the ground.

6) Why are English fielders always healthy? Because they never catch anything.

7) What did the spectator miss when he went to the toilet? The entire English innings.

8) What's the English version of a hat-trick? Three runs in three balls.

9) What is the most impressive footwork displayed by an English batsman? The walk back to the pavilion.

10) Why are the English demanding increased match payments? Someone has let on that the matches go to a fourth day.

11) What do you get if you cross the English cricket team with an OXO cube? A laughing stock.

12) What’s the height of optimism? English batsman putting on sunscreen.

13) What’s the difference between an English batsman and a Formula 1 car? Nothing! If you blink you’ll miss them both.

14) What do English batsmen and drug addicts have in common? Both spend most of their time wondering where their next score will come from.

15) What's the difference between the Pommies and a funeral director? A funeral director isn't going to lose the ashes.

16) What is the difference between Cinderella and the Pommies? Cinderella knew when to leave the ball.

Happy New Year

Pete

When will these people get a life and move on.

Marriage is between a man and a woman, get over it.

Nobody is telling you you can't get hitched, so go ahead and get hitched, but do it in your way, not our way.

If gays think their union can be anything like equal to normal couples marriage, then they are simply wasting everyone's time, and money, as each challenge or attempt to get their acceptance is using valuable time and money that is needed to fund far more pressing issues than two of the same sex wanting to marry.

On the bright side, NZ is close enough that they can toddle off and get married and, they can even come back home and be married, IN THEIR MINDS, but marriage between same sex couples WILL NEVER be accepted as equal in this country.

It's simply time to accept the facts and move on.

Rehctub , marriage equality is inevitable in Australia, just as it has happened in other countries.

Why?

Because unless you are overly religious, or just a plain bigot, no one else really cares whether gay people marry or not, because it won't make one damn bit of difference to any one else!