Latham is right:

<Former Labor leader Mark Latham slams Labor over gay marriage

FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham has slammed his party’s “obsession” with gay marriage saying it should focus on the nation’s “Struggle Streets” instead.

He told 3AW radio Bill Shorten’s private members bill to push for changes to the marriage act to allow same-sex couples to tie the knot, to be introduced into parliament on Monday, was nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

He said the biggest social issue facing Austalia was unemployment, drug use and homelessness in suburbs such as Mt Druitt which was the focus of the SBS documentary, Struggle Street.

“If you are interested in equality and social justice in Australia then what was the really big event in the month of May,” he said. “We had the Struggle Street documentary which revealed that in the nation’s public housing estate, most notably in Mt Druit people live in conditions that you wouldn’t wish upon your dogs. Absolute chaos, despair and hopelessness in their lives.

“And surely, you would have expected a serious national response from the party of social justice?

“We didn’t hear anything.

“They’re obsessed, instead, by gay marriage.”

Mr Latham said legalising same-sex marriage would not “improve” anyone’s standard of living, nor would it improve their capacity to “function in society”.

“It’s a legal document,” he said. “It’s a piece of symbolism. It might make some people feel better to have a marriage document but it really is a low order priority.

“On the Richter scale of social justice Struggle Street is a 10, gay marriage is a point one..>
http://tinyurl.com/p6kts6c

I think we need to 'invent' another word: christophobia - unrealistic hatred of Christians.

If the homosexual lobby can hijack Latin:'homo'meaning man and 'phobia' meaning fear of; adroitly changed to mean 'hate' as "homophobia" why can't those who hold that same sex marriage is against the 'natural order' - creation or evolution, coin a trendy word to trot out whenever anyone disagrees with their viewpoints.

Discrimination is not bigotry - we all discriminate daily so let's not confuse bigotry with 'unfair' discrimination.

It would appear that those that so stupidly emblazoned bigot on the business address of Dr David van Gend are only advertising that they do not want to nor can engage in decent discourse but only know how to engage in intercourse in the anal passage 'designed' by or whatever for eliminating waste.

Mark Lathan is right - the Labor party are labouring the issue because they think that they will earn Australia-wide accclaim. There are more important issues for them to engage in - leave marriage as the traditional world-wide ceremonial contract between two people of different sexes with or without religious involvement.

Sodomites can do want they want freely without being 'nicely married'.

Why should adults who want to have sex with 9 year-old females after being married be be denied their rights? To oppose this would equally be bigotry?

'Why should adults who want to have sex with 9 year-old females after being married be be denied their rights? To oppose this would equally be bigotry?'

so true ZhanPintu and why should adults who want to have sex with animals be denied their writes? Just ask one of the Christophobes High Priests(Singer).

"Progressives" throw the 'bigot' reference around a lot. They use it in racial, gender, asylum seeker, and class issues. Oppose them on any of their positions in these matters and you'll be called a bigot. You can guarantee though that if you're called a bigot that you're on the right track. To be called a bigot from a "progressive" is a badge of honour.

Calling someone a bigot isn't a refutation. It's merely labelling. As intellectually superior as "progressives" claim themselves to be, they haven't distinguished between refutation and description. Moreover, gay marriage is a moral issue. It's not a scientific matter where you can do measurements and then come to a conclusion. Moral issues are beyond measurements; they emit from feelings and ideas we harbour. It's debatable whether a moral stance can be refuted. It can be disagreed with, but can it be refuted?

Anyway, "progressive" bullying just needs to be dealt with rational argument and counter bullying.

Suse,
Do your own research like I do, I shouldn't have to footnote everything and what you usually do is reply that you can't be bothered reading links. It's not as if facts even matter to supporters of homosexual marriage anyway, as we've seen anyone who contradicts the narrative is shouted down and threatened with censure or worse.
The Irish vote proves that an overwhelming number of voters in that country did not support changing the constitutional definition of marriage, just because the vote passed doesn't legitimise the policy and in Australia we won't be allowed to vote on it at all.
The Australian people made their views on Gay marriage crystal clear in 2013 when they put 145 of the 150 lower house seats in the hands of parties who expressly said they would not support changes to the marriage act, the fact that they have now decided to vote on the issue is a betrayal of their constituents. Just because the parliament passes a bill doesn't mean that homosexual marriage is legitimate, we all know it's a sad charade played out by sad, hollow people and legalising such a farce will only increase discrimination toward homosexuals.

Two wrongs don't make a right but I think there is a lot of reaping what you sow in this. Christain's have for a long time been leaders in the field of calling homosexuals names, of inciting harm to them (in proportion to the power they happen to hold at the time).

It's been very really obvious over the years on OLO how few christian's take runner ( http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/user.asp?id=25098&show=history ) to task for his often vile comments about those who don't subscribe to his own views on sexual morality despite what appears to be a relatively high proportion of posters claiming christian belief.

So while I strongly disagree with the tactics described I think christains wanting to be outraged by those tactics should remove the plank first.

Many of you have generally either engaged in similar or worse tactics or sat quietly by while fellow believers have used those tactics seemingly without complaint from their co-believers.

R0bert