ToniLavis:

You seem to be saying that just because people want something they should have it without having to give reasons so long as it does no harm to anyone else.

You can want all you like but you cannot have without the co-operation of the person who has the power to give. Governments have the power to give but they should never give what people want unless good reasons are shown as to why they should give it. Chaos would ensue if they just handed out whatever anyone wanted.

You keep talking about marriage and government sanctioned marriage as if they are one and the same thing. Do you think that a couple should have the freedom to define their relationship as a marriage even though it is not sanctioned by the government? How can anyone stop them doing otherwise? You say that same-sex couples are banned from being married but they are only banned from having a government sanctioned marriage. That is obviously not the only type of marriage.

If same-sex couples want a government sanctioned marriage then they need to ask for it and governments have a responsibility to use their powers only when there are good reasons to do so.

There are no good reasons why governments need to sanction marriage for anyone and that includes same-sex couples. Unless you can provide good reasons why they should sanction marriage then you have no argument to change the current legislation.

If people have already put a deposit on the hall then they can still go ahead and have a non-government sanctioned marriage ceremony. If they presume a right to a government sanctioned marriage then it is their own fault for having presumptions based on a false argument.

“Thankfully in the case of marriage the evidence is already in: we know marriage isn't harmful.”

We don’t know that same-sex government sanctioned marriage is not harmful in Australia because it does not exist

Eric G,

You may have tried but you did not make sense of my comment at all.

One of the techniques those who want to create “same-sex marriage” use is to invent baseless and abusive accusations against their opponents. They may do this because they want to cover up the illogic of their own position or to label those who disagree as beyond humanity or to intimidate them so that they will leave the field of debate or because it is in their natures to do so. Thus we get comments such as “prejudice” “stigma”, “bigot”, “homophobic” and the like.

You say you want to don’t want to create “same-sex marriage”, but you do want to change the definition of marriage in the Marriage Act, the effect of which is to create “same-sex marriage”, something that has never existed in our society. There is an institution in our society that unites a man and a woman that is thousands of years old. It is called a marriage. There are all sorts of other institutions, arrangement sand relationships that are not marriages. Do they all have to be called marriages to have meaning?

The argument for the creation of “same-sex marriage” is rarely made. The argument made is that there is some form of discrimination because something adults may do does not have the same name as something else they may do but don’t want to do. We just have to change the name of something, and if we don’t agree we are prejudiced, bigoted, religious, fundamentalist homophobes who should be silenced by one of the thought police tribunals.

The English language should retain a word that means the union of a man and a woman. Pretending you are discriminated against because a word has one meaning and not another is absurd.

Toni Lavis:

“ It's called an 'drawing an analogy'. I did it just now with country and western 'music'. I don't know why you're so bothered by the thought of eating cock. They're no good for anything else.”

It is not just drawing an analogy it is also giving us information about your own personal sexual likes and dislikes and that is information we really do not need to know. You could have used the same analogy but without telling us what you like. That information adds nothing to your argument nor does it help the discussion in anyway so we can only presume that you have a need to share such information as some kind of cry for help and I think the forums should be used for discussions and not for answering cries for help.

//It is not just drawing an analogy it is also giving us information about your own personal sexual likes and dislikes//

No it isn't you halfwit. 'Cock' is a homograph; a a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. In the UK and Ireland adult male chickens over the age of one year are primarily known as cocks, whereas in America, Australia and Canada they are more commonly called roosters. But I'm a massive Anglophile and watch a lot of BBC television and read a lot of British authors; so it is quite reasonable for me to use cock to mean an adult male chicken. Human penises are known as 'cock' in the vernacular sense, but it should have been obvious from the context that that was not the way I meant it. I do find it interesting that that is the conclusion you jump to, and then steadfastly cling to even after it has been pointed out that is an erroneous conclusion. It suggests to me that you have some sort of fascination with penises.

//Unless you can provide good reasons why they should sanction marriage then you have no argument to change the current legislation.//

Unless you can provide good reasons why the Government should sanction marriage, your argument is essentially one in favour of repealing the marriage legislation entirely. You haven't provided good reasons why the government should sanction marriage, so you don't really have an argument not to change the current legislation.

//We don’t know that same-sex government sanctioned marriage is not harmful in Australia because it does not exist//

Alright, how is marriage harmful then phanto? In the general sense, not specific cases where couples split up.

//The English language should retain a word that means the union of a man and a woman.//

Why?

Toni Lavis:

“but it should have been obvious from the context that that was not the way I meant it.”

OK then – no need to defend yourself. It does seem to have touched a nerve though or have I mis-interpreted what you mean by half-wit?

“Unless you can provide good reasons why the Government should sanction marriage, your argument is essentially one in favour of repealing the marriage legislation entirely.”

That should be pretty obvious if I have already said that the government has to have reasons and does not appear to have any.

“so you don't really have an argument not to change the current legislation.”

Do you mean change it or repeal it all together? There is certainly no argument to either maintain it or broaden it.

“//We don’t know that same-sex government sanctioned marriage is not harmful in Australia because it does not exist//

Alright, how is marriage harmful then phanto? In the general sense, not specific cases where couples split up.”

I didn’t say it was harmful I just said that you cannot know for certain what you stated. We cannot know what will happen until if and when same-sex government sanctioned marriage exists. Either way it is irrelevant because the argument about harm is irrelevant. Just because a change in government legislation does no harm does not mean it should be changed. There are other things to consider such as the extent to which it is appropriate for governments to be involved in defining marriage.

//The English language should retain a word that means the union of a man and a woman.//

Why?

I didn’t say that. Must have been someone else.