The same-sex marriage campaign is like kids who don’t like chocolate but do like jelly beans and may have as many of the latter as they want chucking a tantrum until they get jelly beans called chocolate.

There is no such thing as same-sex marriage, any more than there are square circles or carnivorous vegetarians, and yet this absurdity created out of nothing has reached the brink of success inside 20 years.

The aim was to steal a word or, to put it another way, 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.

We know that plebiscite on same-sex marriage has no legal force. We know that any question phrased as the usual opinion polls on the subject are will be carried. We know that any question phrased in such a way as to give the opponents of same-sex marriage a chance of victory will be condemned as trickery and thus only postpone the issue. We therefore know that a decision to hold plebiscite means that those in the Abbott government who claim to oppose same-sex marriage do not want to give the people a say at all but just want a way of telling the conservative base that they tried and failed.

Given that the High Court took it upon itself to amend the Constitution by changing the meaning of the word “marriage” in it, the only way anyone can take the Abbott government’s claimed opposition to same-sex marriage seriously is if the people are permitted a constitutional referendum to change the meaning back.

To have any chance of success, such a referendum needs to both recognise same-sex unions and preserve real marriage. A proposal to replace the word “marriage” with “civil partnership (being the union of any two adult persons voluntarily entered into for life), including marriage (being the voluntary union of one man and one woman voluntarily entered into for life” puts the onus on the defenders of marriage to achieve the double majority and thus avoids the claims of trickery that the reverse proposition would provoke.

I don’t expect there to be a referendum and therefore believe it is only a matter of time before the word theft campaign succeeds. But that won’t stop me pointing out the irrationality of the whole idea along the way.

Homosexual marriage itself is a petty issue not worth our time.

But the author's greater campaign against individual conscience is a real threat:

"some opponents of [something-the-author-believes-in] insist the consciences of all Australians must be preserved under the guise of religious liberty. If we grant any credence to the "conscience" of one person, unaccompanied by evidence or argument, we devalue the objective good reasons why policies are implemented."

The people who live in this continent were never allowed in the first place to exercise their conscience whether or not they agree to belong to that collective "WE" the author speaks as. Now he wants to use that "we" to quash individual conscience altogether.

I am not asking the author to give credence to other people's conscience - merely not to forcibly obstruct others when they act on theirs.

The demand for "objective good reasons" in the context of policy-making is nonsensical: no policy whatsoever makes objective sense because the objective world contains no "good" or "bad" - No such "good" (or "bad") particle, wave or any other "good" entity was ever discovered by science! Only once infused with subjective values can policies start to make sense. What the author is actually asking, is that his subjective preferences override opposing values because... well he has the guns.

The author concludes:

"It's quite possible Australian voters have more love and empathy for same-sex couples than they do for either major political party."

True - but no love or empathy for those who wish to tread on our conscience.

MARRIAGE ACT 1961 - SECT 94
Bigamy (1) A person who is married shall not go through a form or ceremony of marriage with any person.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years.

Well, Alan Jones, where's the campaign to reform this?
Can't you "love" more than one person?

Hugh Harris runs around chasing his own tail.
If relationship rights exist "in fact" than there is no point to all this kerfuffle.

"treating a word or an abstract concept as though it's real."

Words have specific meanings or language and communication would be impossible.

MPs can actually vote any way they want any time they want, on any bill.
They are elected as individual people (which is why they can resign from a party and still keep their seat).

The thing about laws is they establish compulsory obligations that apply to *all* citizens.

Gay marriage is not forced on the couples, but it will be forced on all providers of goods and services (as we've seen in the many wedding cake lawsuits recently).
Where are the "rights and liberties" of bakers and dressmakers?

And no, religion is not the only possible basis for objection.
It could be argued from a purely secular, scientific perspective that genitalia have a biological purpose: reproduction.

Ipso facto, all sexual unions should be heterosexual, as any other contradicts nature.
Nothing about God there, I'm afraid. (I don't agree with this. I'm just pointing out there is a non-religious rationale).

By the time this does go to a vote, the public may be so sick of cake-controversy news stories, they reject it in disgust at the totalitarian "means" associated with the noble "end".

Be careful what you wish for.

Chris C,

Words don’t have meaning. Words have usage and we attribute meaning to them. No-one owns words either, so your entire argument is invalid.

Definitions changes over time. A larrikin used to be a delinquent. Nice used to mean foolish and stupid. Marriage used to be a form of trade or a way of forging alliances between two powerful families.

<<There is no such thing as same-sex marriage, any more than there are square circles or carnivorous vegetarians, and yet this absurdity created out of nothing has reached the brink of success inside 20 years.>>

This assumes that a true and objective definition of marriage lay waiting for us to discover while those in the distant past were just using the word incorrectly. Good luck in justifying that without invoking the supernatural. Marriage is whatever a society deems it to be.

<<...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.>>

What a stupid comment. Gay people were already made to feel like second-class citizens by mere virtue of being themselves for those 980 years, so it’s hardly surprising that not being able to marry was not on the top of their list of priorities

Two things; in order to have a conscience vote you first need a conscience?

And simply not evident in some folks who've been able to ostracize/evict/exile their own flesh and blood for daring to (chose) be born different!

To the advantage of the ultra religious far right, is the comforting knowledge, like Chris C, they're like an omnipresent, omni powerful, all knowing God, always right!?

And can be guaranteed to fight a bloody minded rearguard action, all the way to a carefully worded referendum, before they desert the field?

And a useful tactic, if it were just a case of swaying the undecided!?

I like so many others watched as siblings, friends and relatives grew up in the same household, subject to the same set of circumstances, environment, examples, inculcation of conventional values; yet turned different!?

Clearly for those of us just not confining our brain to a locked and bolted mindset!? There's simply no element of choice here except for those whose chose to (mentally or physically) bash folk/estranged relatives, for daring to be born different!

I can remember the republican debate which had around 70% support for a republic; and how a document full of, I believe, cleverly hand crafted weasel words killed stillborn!

Therefore and arguably on the aforementioned grounds, We can have marriage equality or a returned anti equality Abbott government; just not both!
Rhrosty.