//Marriage is for heterosexuals...If you are GLBT then love whoever you like & stay out of our business.//

I'm straight. When you assume, you make complete dick of yourself.

//That is state business, "Holy Matrimony" is church business & the state should stay out of it.//

Being heterosexual is not the same as being a God-botherer, and I don't want those jerks sticking their nose into my business. If I want to get married then as an Australian male over the age of 18 who isn't already married to somebody else I am entitled to marry to marry a female who meets the same criteria and isn't too closely related to me. This is none of the church's business and you haven't given a good reason as to why it should be; just asserted that it should be so and when challenged on that assertion your attempt at a rebuttal was an irrelevant diatribe against gay marriage. And you wonder why people make fun of Christians...

If I want to get married it'll be between me, my girlfriend and the state. Why should the churches get any say in the matter when I don't belong to any of them?

//The meek conservative Christians have been tolerating GLBT lifestyle for 2,000 years now & it is time for you to leave us alone.//

I'm not G, L, B or T and I'll leave you entirely un-meek religious righties alone when you stop trying to force your beliefs upon me. Don't you get it? I don't place any stock in your book of nonsensical fairy-tales written thousands of years ago by a bunch of desert-dwelling stone age tribes whose existence bears no resemblance to my own. It would be just as reasonable to base my life on the fairy-tales first spoken thousands of years ago by a bunch of desert-dwelling stone age tribes known as the Dreamtime myths. Or to start worshipping Ra. If somebody suggested that Dreamtime myths play a role in determining public policy you would ridicule them, but apparently you are too blind to see the double standard inherent in your own position that ancient Middle-Eastern myths should play a role in determining public policy.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Q, can any of you even read english?

Loudmouth, I clearly pointed out to WmTrevor, where he is wrong about the constitution & where to find the correct information. The separation of powers is how you achieve a civilized society. The state builds roads, the church builds social capital.

Now we're getting somewhere !

david f, if you want to live in an atheist nation, leave.

Loudmouth, misinterpreting again, 500 to 200 years ago western conservative christians studied their judeo/christian & greco/roman history & re-invented modern era democracy to be better than failed greco/roman democracy because of christian cannon law.

"conservative christian democracy is not perfect, but is the best that anyone has come up with yet" Churchill

For God's sake, I wish we could all get above these childish, pissy arguments over yesterday's petty squabbles, and those of the day before that, and before that, and get onto genuine discussion. Perfectly put, but the work was all done for you, 300 years ago during the Protestant Christian Conservative enlightenment & they came up with the perfect system we had in the land of OZ before WW1.

Toni Lavis, i repeat, if you are an atheist? why are you living in a christian nation? just leave, move to an atheist nation like North Korea. i supplied scientific proof about our constitution BTW.

Not happy to rewrite history, secularist are to blind to see that they are largely responsible for the billions wasted on the gw religion, the millions of murdered babies and the foolhardy ideology that has led to Islam reeking such havic in Europe. Secularism is also largely responsible for the breakdown of the family after encouraging generations of kids not to know a thing about faithfulness. You would think they would shut up, Instead you have them peddling more lies. Oh well with no moral base except pseudo science why should anyone be surprised. And to think they really believe they are rational.Lovely to remain so blindly ignorant.

"Q, can any of you even read english (sic)?"

Yes and comprehend it. So, I'll supply the following from p.1030 of Sir Robert Garran's 1901 Commentaries on the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia and you can supply the Oxford Dictionary definitions that show how 'religion of which we have no conception' and 'religion in every shape and form' is scientific proof that "the word religion = different churches":

"If, then, such [US] Federal legislation could be founded on a Constitution which contained no reference whatever to the Almighty, how much more likely was it that the Federal Parliament might, owing to the recital in the preamble, be held to possess power with respect to religion of which we have no conception. Consequently, argued Mr. Higgins, the power to deal with religion in every shape and form should be clearly denied to the Federal Parliament. These arguments were allowed to prevail, and the provisions of sec. 116 became part of the Constitution."

The commentaries at ¶ 4. “Humbly Relying on the Blessing of Almighty God” do not support you claim "1, it is impossible to believe in God unless you are Christian or Jewish."

I'd also argue that sec. 51 demonstrates that the Constitutional Convention delegates weren't prepared to entrust social capital to 'the church' unencumbered. Which point is supported by the earlier reference to Reynolds v. United States: "The free exercise of religion secured by the Constitution to the individual against the power of the government is, therefore, confined to the realm of purely spiritual worship; i.e., to relations between the individual and an extra-mundane being. So soon as religion seeks to regulate relations between two or more individuals, it becomes subject to the powers of the government and to the supremacy of the law."

Maybe your point about the Constitution is, 'What it clearly says is not what it means because what it doesn't say is clearly what it means.'

Which coincidentally, is one of the criticisms of biblical apologetics.

//Toni Lavis, i repeat, if you are an atheist? why are you living in a christian nation?//

I'm not an atheist. What did I just say about making assumptions? You seem to enjoy making a dick of yourself.

Australia is not a theocracy. As far as I know, there are no Christian theocracies in the world. You can try as hard as you like to make it a theocracy, but I confidently predict that your labours will be less productive than those of Sisyphus.

//i supplied scientific proof about our constitution BTW//

ROFLMAO