When in comes to the alleged superiority of Church charities most overlook the overwhelming number of secular charities doing far more for the community.

The truth is that the money spent by many of these Church charities are a drop in the bucket compared to the vast wealth they represent.

It's like the recent debate about tax concessions to Sporting clubs because of their community involvement. Those clubs spend far more on advertising than on their community work and - like the Churches - are also subsidised by the taxpayer.

Charitable activity is little more than lip-service paid to maintain an image and recruit more members.

It's no coincidence that the Mormons are the largest land holder in at least one of the states in the USA and the Catholic church has the funds to end global starvation tomorrow if it chose to do so.

Spare me the self-righteousness about charity - the Churches spend more on themselves than on anything else.

Also, why don't the exploding divorce rate, the infidelity, the abandoned children and the domestic violence of heterosexual marriage threaten the concept of marriage, but only the gays?

Marriage has turned into a business and has lost any of its original or religious emphasis (if it ever had any of these) and is simply now commercial. I was very turned off, when being told some churches charge $1000 or more for a wedding ceremony, when I thought this was a community service.

A relationship based on a solid ground, really doesn't need any type of marriage at all - but for too many people it's simply about the luxuries that go along with it - so in reality it is very expensive and plastic. Why would somebody want that?

The main reason, I believe people would not support removing marriage (in terms of government and law) is that they would have to face up to the 'truth' in terms of their relationship.

If a government has 'law', versus 'no law', there are issues to face - but many people, in terms of marriage wouldn't even want to talk about them.

With marriage law there are protection elements that protect the people and those people involved in the future. So marriage 'law' in that context takes fear out of people's minds re the future.

There can be a negative to that. In terms of say a relationship that may break down in the future, this could have been avoided if a good plan for the relationship was planned from day one - and this can be done privately, and then move to any type of ceremony religious or not of that nature. It may also mean that two people decide not to stay together (from the start) or realise their relationship needs more time to develop, before moving to some to some type of formal connection.

Divorce is very expensive, emotional impacts are very serious (on all involved - including children) and with better relationship planning such breakdown may decline. Unfortunately such planning, could frighten some and doesn't fit in with the elements of rosy style wedding ceremonies.