Hi DreamOn,

Yeah, I used to think that inter-marriage had been illegal until the early sixties, at least in SA, but no. Hanging around Aboriginal women with lustful intent was illegal in most states until the sixties, but not marriage: i.e. the authorities tried (in vain, to say the least) to repress casual contact for sexual purposes - shag and shoot through - but promoted marriage. Anecdotally, it seems the police would ask a bloke how serious he was, and if he wasn't, they would warn him off - but if he was intent on marrying, then he would he shepherded through the process, expeditiously.

It happened a lot more than people think, as did marriage between Aboriginal men and non-Aboriginal women: the earliest example of that that I can find in SA was up at Mt Barker in about 1855, and there were three or four others that I know of, later in the 19th century. In fact, in dribs and drabs ever since 1855.

In most states, 'co-habiting' with Aboriginal women was either illegal or frowned upon. After all, in those days before single parent's benefit, how could an Aboriginal woman raise a child without a bread-winner ? In some states and the NT before 1960, the authority had control of who Aboriginal women could marry, but no mention on inter-racial grounds.

Check out McCorquodale's 'Aborigines and the Law: A Digest', it's pretty exhaustive.

And of course, DreamOn, what happened in US law has no bearing at all on the law here. 'Back in the day', by the way, is only forty or fifty years ago over there, although by the fifties, inter-marriage was illegal in only a minority of US states.

Joe

Not just unions with members of the Original people of course Joe, but any inter-racial marriage. You see, up until the end of WWII Australia did not even recognise other races as equal at all. The Japanese in particular took great offence to this.

And their partners in this of course were the u.k. and the u.s.a who as other so called "common law" countries share quite a bit in common with us. In fact I have heard it said that Australian law and its system has only ever been a sub set of the u.k. system which in part accounts for "The Australia Act" overriding provisions of the Constitution without having had to resort to a referendum as would normally have been the only way to initiate such a change.

A J Philips:

I accused you of nagging. The normal response would be to examine your conscience to see if you felt guilty about anything that you had done. If you felt no guilt about anything then it would be irrelevant what the meaning of nagging was. There is no point to your study of nagging if you are in touch with your own feelings.

Pogi:

Whatever you think I should do is not really relevant. I made a claim that there is no such thing as a homosexual and so they cannot be born that way. You should be able to provide evidence to refute my claim but you have not done so. Since there is no evidence to refute such a proposition then it would be reasonable to accept that the proposition is true until proven otherwise.

We know for certain that heterosexuals are born that way so in the face of any evidence to the contrary it would be reasonable to assume that everybody is born that way. This would be a more reasonable assumption on the basis of the evidence than the assumption that there are people who are born homosexual. There is absolutely no evidence that people are born homosexual.

So perhaps you can provide conclusive proof that people are born homosexual. The onus is on you really.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/largest-ever-study-into-the-gay-gene-erodes-the-notion-that-sexual-orientation-is-a-choice-9875855.html

" ... Research conducted by the NorthShore Research Institute in the US found clear links between male sexual orientation and two specific regions of the human genome, with lead scientist Alan Sanders declaring that the work “erodes the notion that sexual orientation is a choice”.

The study is three times larger than any previously done and highlights two genetic regions that have been tied to male homosexuality in separate research: Xq28, first identified in 1993, and 8q12, spotted in 2005.

However, Sanders does not claim to have identified a single gene which ‘causes’ male homosexuality in humans and stresses that with complex human traits like sexual orientation there are many influencing factors, both genetic and environmental. ... "

There is no “normal” response, phanto.

<<The normal response [to an accusation of nagging] would be to examine your conscience to see if you felt guilty about anything that you had done.>>

There would be a number of responses that would be the most frequently observed, or the most constructive, or the least problematic. But there is no such thing as a “normal” response. And even if there were, you wouldn’t know about it anyway as your psychological analyses are all pure guesswork.

<<If you felt no guilt about anything then it would be irrelevant what the meaning of nagging was.>>

The definition of a word is always relevant when someone uses that word incorrectly.

No guilty consciences required.

<<There is no point to your study of nagging if you are in touch with your own feelings.>>

How Zen of you.

So, according to your amateur psychology, people who are in touch with their feelings don’t feel the need to correct definitions when misunderstandings of them arise? Where's the logic in that?

<<So perhaps you can provide conclusive proof that people are born homosexual.>>

This is the Shifting of the Burden of Proof fallacy (http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof). You were the one who claimed that people can’t be born homosexual, it is up to you to provide evidence of that claim:

“You can't be born a homosexual since there is no such thing. There are just heterosexuals who indulge in homosexual type behaviour.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18439#327307)

And why does the proof have to be “conclusive”? Are you pre-emptively attempting to shift the goalposts out of fear that someone will provide evidence? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts)

Speaking of which...

http://www.behavioralneuroscience.org/neurogenetics_files/La%CC%8Angstro%CC%88m%20et%20al.%20-%202010%20-%20Archives%20of%20sexual%20behavior.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18561014
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/J_Bailey2/publication/12572213_Genetics_and_Environmental_Influences_on_Sexual_Orientation_and_Its_Correlates_in_an_Australian_Twin_Sample/links/0deec518bc0435c0cd000000.pdf

But even if it were found that gay people weren’t born that way, the fact that they can’t change and have no reason to would mean that such a discovery would change nothing.

From AJ's 1st link:

" ... Our results support the notion that same-sex behavior
arises not only from heritable but also from individual specific
environmental sources. ... "

2nd link:

" ... New evidence of genetic factors influencing sexual orientation in men: female fecundity increase in the maternal line. .. thus, our data confirmed a sexually antagonistic inheritance partly linked to the X-chromosome that promotes fecundity in females and a homosexual sexual orientation in males. ... "