You're absolutely right. But it's not going to happen any time soon, is it? So while personal relationships remain a matter of interest to the government, it is fair and just to insist that gender discrimination should be removed from government policy.

And who knows? Once the government is pressured into acknowledging that all relationships are equally valid, it may lose interest in trying to regulate them at all.

This author makes a lot of sense despite the unnecessary pot shots at the Church. I have celebrated quite a few marriages in my time in which signing of the registrar looked like an integral part of the service. In celebrating marriages I was dutifully a servant of both the church and the state and posted off the documents to the registrar of marriages.

It is interesting that many of the marriages I celebrated, only three I know for sure, ended in divorce but not one of the couples came to me when their marriage was in trouble. They dealt with the state to obtain their divorce and make a property settlement and make arrangements for the children.

This is significant because it emphasises a common reality, at least in non-Catholic churches, that people in general regard marriage not as a theological reality but a legal reality. Marriage for many is no longer a matter of faith but of law.

With the recognition of de facto relationships there is really no reason to get married unless you are a practicing Christian and hold to a theological description. So, why is the state involved? If matters of justice and the care for children operate with or without marriage then the state should not care about marriage in fact cannot care about marriage.

If the state retreats in these matters the issue of marriage equality is solved. Marriage becomes an agreement between two people, period. The various churches can hold to their view and only those who also hold to that view can have the church bless their union. Continued....

Such a position recognises the fact that our society is no longer, on the whole, Christian, and to moan about the decline of marriages in church is a waste of breath. I do think Christian faith has important things to say about sexual relationships, straight or gay and that ignorance of those things is a loss. But these things cannot be imposed, they are to do with grace and not law.

I agree with the author, the state has no business in regulating our sexual relationships. But if you are Christian, you have to recognise that the Church is very much involved.

If it's currently legal for a Christian man and woman to go to a Church and have a marriage ceremony without registering the marriage with the State, I suppose marriage is already privatised, and it doesn't really matter if the Marriage Act is changed.

The tide of history is very much against this Author!

However, I for one would allow this matter to be forever settled by a Plebiscite; and while we are asking people what they want, what they really really want; how about asking if they'd like their rights enshrined in law as irrevocable rights!

Freedom of speech, assembly, religion, equality before God and the law; as fully informed consenting adults, with children being unable therefore; to consent to sexual activity/union or be given or bartered in "marriage"/sexual slavery!

And no taxation without representation; and the right to be born different without official or unofficial repercussions.

Gerrymandered results i.e., (dastardly deeds done in the dead of night with preference swaps) are not representation; just (hopefully, occasionally) benign dictatorship!

We almost without exception can under our system, elect representatives that as many as 85% of the community outright rejected!

And as such, far worse than the infamous and undemocratic Gerrymander!

I mean and lets face it, genuine for, by and of the people democracy, would have seen this mater effectively dealt with a decade or more ago!?

Arguably, our hopelessly flawed system with its intended misrepresentation; (tail wagging the dog) has all but replaced equality in human relationships and or, before the law!?

If fair dinkum representation had replaced the dog's breakfast we call the compulsory preferential voting system, John Howard wouldn't have been able to force his GST down our throats, nor declare as he did in 2004, that marriage was (officially) between a man and a woman!

True equality would be a very pleasant and welcome change; and just no longer dependent on the size of your checkbook!

Not everyone can afford to travel and resettle just to be accorded the rights in law as any other citizen!

Finally, marriages must remain registered, if only to impose lawful responsibility/protect the unwary against their own stupidity/prevent a breakout of mass polygamy/limit duped naive partners/shared STD's/single mums etc?
Rhrosty.

Dear Rhrosty,

Had such a bill-of-rights as you propose been established, then it would seem as if your freedom is state-given, that the state in its infinite mercy has bestowed those freedoms on you, thus you should be thankful to it.

The fact is that all those freedoms are natural and had the state not taken them away from you in the first place, it wouldn't be in a position to "gift" a selected portion of them back to you.

<<True equality would be a very pleasant and welcome change; and just no longer dependent on the size of your checkbook!>>

Pleasant indeed for those who didn't work for their money or spent it all away, but very unpleasant for those who worked hard, lived frugally and saved for a rainy day, for old age, for their future generations or for any other purpose they believe in.

<<marriages must remain registered, if only to impose lawful responsibility/protect the unwary against their own stupidity/prevent a breakout of mass polygamy/limit duped naive partners/shared STD's/single mums etc?>>

That's indeed the motto of the Nanny state: "we know better than you, so we decide what's best for you". Registration of marriages, however, won't prevent any of the risks you mentioned, only forcible registration of sexual contacts would, so I presume that sexual freedom will not be included in you bill-of-rights...

Rhrosty. Why is it that the progressive component of the debate insist on it being a parliamentary, political amendment to the act? Why is it that the proponents of change advocate against a plebiscite I wonder?
I would have thought that 'marriage equality' means that I undertake an equal share of the vaccuming, clothes washing, cooking and child rearing? I guess that after the passage of the act I will need to take equal responsibility for pressing the 'start' button on the wonderful magic Rhoomber cleaner ;)

This will be brief...

I wonder if this adds/subtracts/ or merely meets the "seal" of approval from those that militate for change:

http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/court-told-humans-could-marry-animals/

:-)

Sells,

>> This is significant because it emphasises a common reality, at least in non-Catholic churches, that people in general regard marriage not as a theological reality but a legal reality. Marriage for many is no longer a matter of faith but of law. <<

I think you are right to take the Catholic Church out of this. For a Catholic, at least in theory, there are three concepts, or rather ways of looking at marriage: as (a) a sacrament, as (b) a civil legal contract, and (c) as a social concept, its usefulness - and possible predictions about long time consequences of departures from a traditional understanding of it - to be discussed in the context of sociology and psychology.

The difference:

The Church (e.g. Canon Law)

(a) decides about marriage as a sacrament;

(b) cannot influence more than any other lobby group - some more some less powerful than the Church - what, and under what conditions, the state recognises as marriage;

(c) can offer recommendations (“teachings of the Church”) on the importance (or not) of preserving the traditional concepts of marriage, family, education etc, often forgetting that not only ethicists, psychologists and sociologists have their say in this but increasingly also geneticists, and biologists in general.

I repeat, this is in theory. In many countries, even in the former Communist ones, the priest could marry you only after you had been married civilly. A complete separation, that the Church should strive for, would mean mutual independence of the two.

Unfortunately, in (Catholic) practice the above three meanings and competences are often confused. So also the reaction they get is guided more by emotions than rational assessment of the pluses and minuses of the alternatives. This could be seen in the case of the Irish vote, where the local Catholic hierarchy (not so much the Pope) thus overplayed their hand turning the referendum to a large extent into a vote of no confidence in the traditional (Irish) understanding of Catholicism as an absolute moral authority, which the issue at stake was only marginally related to.