If true, it is a strike against Fr. Brennan and his idea of Catholicism that he will support SSM if he and his teachings are left alone. When a Catholic priest says he will support this utter nonsense, society has really hit rock bottom.

All that Christians have to do is ask for the government to create two marriage acts, one secular and the other religious, and it will be given to them. Eventually marriage will be redefined, and the worst path for Christians to take would be to pretend that living under a secular definition is scripturally sound. And while there, we need to consider why we've rendered everything unto Caesar when it was supposed to be limited to taxes. Mark 12:17.

Of course “No one should be denied the ability to marry the person they love simply because of the religious beliefs of others”, but no one is. To “marry” is to form a union with a person of the opposite sex. If you do not want to form a union with a person of the opposite sex, you are free not to. If you want instead to form a union with a person of the same sex, you are free to do so. What you are not free to do is steal the word “marriage”, just as vegetarians are not free to steal the word “carnivore” to describe themselves.

There is no such thing as same-sex marriage, and yet this absurdity created out of nothing has reached the brink of success inside 20 years because of a ruthlessly dishonest campaign.

The aim was to steal a word or, to make sure the English language no longer had a word that meant the union of a man and a woman, that husband no longer meant husband and that wife no longer meant wife. To succeed, the aim had to be dressed up in human rights language with the campaign falsely labelled marriage equality, with the creation of a minority group of victims being discriminated against, with polls asking if same-sex marriage should be legalised (even though it was not illegal in the first place, but non-existent) or if gays should be allowed to marry (when they already were, just as they already were allowed to form same-sex unions). To add emotion, opponents were intimidated by being called homophobic bigots and by being blamed for mental health issues actually created by the campaign’s invention of the idea that the thousand-year-old meaning of a word made gays feel second-class, even though it had not done so for the first 980 of those years.

Gay marriage is the silliest thing to be taken seriously in my lifetime, but the campaign provides a lesson for those want real things. Get the wording right and you can change anything.

Hear, hear and well said Luke!

If a gentle Jesus were alive and with us today many of Father Brennan's ilk would likely label him gay and decline his request for a same sex marriage to Judas, which by the way would end all suspicion for all time?

To which he may well have replied, "inasmuch as you do to the least among you, you also do unto me"? And no sick homophobic jokes please!

Prejudice is just not pretty, which sometimes turn up in and emergency ward as a bashed gay barely alive!

And only so because some have been inculcated to believe that gay people are inherently evil people. who have another choice; one of which is, entirely unreasonable self imposed celibacy?

Yeah sure, you can even get a horse to deal cards if you shove a cattle prod up its arse enough times?

Aversion/behavior moderation therapy?

Even so, it is not how the horse was born, or with a God given ability to deal cards?

Me I've had enough of the anti equality campaign or rearguard action, ably supported by an entirely recalcitrant PM?

Me, I vote to end the manufacture of left handed screwdrivers, combs, pins, light switches, rolling pins and rulers or two left handers being allowed to marry!

I mean c'mon, what's next, being allowed to wear your wedding ring on the third finger of your right hand, because you're naturally left handed?

Some traditions are far more important than the rights of the marginalised!

I mean there was a time when white folks were the only ones allowed to queue,when the brains were being handed out?
Rhrosty.

If marriage is only about 'love' as the gay marriage proponents assert and now that marriage is to undergo radical change it is high time that the increasing number of singles demanded to know why they should be required to pay for other people's 'love'.

What about getting rid of those couple advantages, concessions and lurks that singles miss out on and must inevitably have to subsidise directly or indirectly?

Why should singles have to pay for gay love, on top of copping the short end of the stick for gays and heteros who don't even commit for marriage and many regard their de facto 'relationships'(sic) as flexible and temporary anyhow? -Particularly the every beneficial employment conditions that gay and heterosexual couples have been able to claim for years as politicians and public servants. They have been the greedy pacesetters along with senior managers in private enterprise.

Why should singles who are usually in casual employment be forced to pay for the 'love' choices of others anyhow? What was that about ending the Age of Entitlement?

Why should young working singles who are required to pay for their own education, shelter and superannuation (where their small subs are plundered and often extinguished by management fees) be obliged to support the vastly increased increased number of 'couple relationships' approved by the feds?

This is a one-time golden opportunity for singles young and old, to show all political parties that singles have rights too and NO, they shouldn't be forced to pay for others' 'love'.

At the very least, singles of all ages should register a protest against their shabby treatment by finding someone else to vote for than the Greens and Labor in the Senate and some LNP hopefuls too it seems.

Chris C:

That is a well painted picture of how bizarre this whole circus has become.

When you are insecure about the validity of your relationship and where it fits into the wider picture of all relationships it is a good tactic to try and attach yourself to a group of people who seem to have validity and mimic their relationships.

Whether or not marriage adds to the validity of a relationship is questionable but why do homosexual couples feel the need to mimic? You would think they would be proud of their distinctiveness and want to celebrate it with a unique word for their relationship. If they had a unique word then everyone would get the picture that they are both homosexual and in a special relationship. If they are able to legally marry then such a distinction is lost.

That is the point of the whole exercise – to be seen to be both married and homosexual but how would anyone know this? If you say you are married people will reasonably presume you are heterosexual and that is not what you want so why not choose a word that conveys the fact that you have a special relationship and you are homosexual?

Their behaviour is so riddled with inconsistencies and hypocrisy that it is hard to take them seriously.