To Mr Hugh Harris.

I think that most Australians believed that the time had come in 1973 that homosexual acts between consenting partners over 18 years of age should no longer be a criminal offense. That did not mean that Australians approved of this behaviour, only that they conceded that some people have some sort of genetic defect that screws up their sexuality, and no amount of punishment is going to change that.

Your premise is, that most Australians now believe that homosexuality is now considered socially acceptable and it now should have equal status as normal marrige between males and females. My premise is, that this is complete rot. I think that most people do not accept same sex unions as "marriage" and consider it to be a threat to family values.

If a majority of politicians of all persuasions agree that homosexual unions should be equal to real marriage, then this simply shows how much our political class can enact legislation which their own electorate vehemently reject. The issue is so important to the future of our society, that nothing less than a referendum can reflect the will of the people on this issue. No social transformation without direct representation.

I am certain that the homosexual lobby will do everything they can to prevent a referendum which would clearly display the real opinions of the people on this matter. They know that they will lose, and lose badly.

Every argument put forward by the homosexual lobby to advance their cause of homosexual equality could be used by incestuous couples demanding that brothers should marry sisters, mothers should marry their sons, fathers should marry their daughters, or cousins should marry their cousins. This is now feasible with birth control preventing the births of babies with congenital birth defects. But Hugh, unless incestuous couples can do what the homosexual lobby has done, and frustrate the will of the people, it ain't gonna happen.

AJ Philips, I'm still waiting to hear your proposed procedure for *individually* accessing potentially millions of immigration applicants for their suitability for our evolved/enlightened society.

Sorry, Shockadelic. I’ve been extremely busy this week.

<<You are making "sweeping generalisations" by claiming incest and bigamy are automatically "harmful".>>

I haven’t said they are “automatically harmful”. In fact, In one instance, I went to the effort of saying that incest was “potentially harmful”. (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17616#311694)

<<And I recall your use of affection for the words "never" and "always".>>

Indeed I have. And I am still waiting on you to give me an example of instances that contradict my use of the words.

<<And your "sweeping generalisations" about the history of Blacks in America.>>

That’s a ridiculous comparison. Situations are not people and no-one expects others to insert qualifiers such as “usually” and “most of the time” every time they open their mouths. Making mention of something in conversation with an expectation to not have to qualify everything with “most, but not all” is quite different to making official policy for a nation that has real world implications both nationally internationally.

Most of the time.

<<"Rights" enshrined in state law are "sweeping generalisations"...>>

If you can figure out a way to have the State cost-effectively micromanage every interaction, while simultaneously increasing the liberty of individuals, and not advocating anarchy as an alternative, then you go for it.

<<Now, how exactly are we to assess the individual immigrant's "evolved/enlightened" attitudes to issues/values?>>

I don’t know. I only know about the negative effects of, and the problems associated with, rejecting an entire people because their ancestry. I haven’t thought about it enough to have a strong opinion on what should be done if it proves impossible to screen every applicant effectively.

What I do know, however, is that implementing the policies that those of your ilk (sorry, that most of those of your ilk) would have us implement would cause the some ethnic peoples already here to feel marginalised and, subsequently create a problem worse problem.

Potentially.

Besides, this is way off topic now. My point was that your equating of homosexuality with incest and polygamy was flawed, and I have sufficiently proven my point there.

Yes, AJ "generalisations" are the basis of all law and public policy.
So get used to them.

The only other option is anarchy. Which I don't recommend.

So there's no suggestion on how to screen the potential millions of immigrants.
Clueless.

My "ilk" (that would be me alone) would stop all immigration, except for European ancestry *refugees* (e.g. White South Africans fleeing their genocide).

That severely limits the number of applicants needing processing and they are already presumably modern-Western-culture compliant, so no real need to screen in the first place.

As for minorities offended by any policy change.
Their subjective self-perception is irrelevant to our nation's future.