Those who want to get married are not a side to it: those who want to get married, get married and live happily ever after, with or without a silly piece of paper.

This whole business from the outset was about Christian-bashing (and no, I am not a Christian). It never had anything to do with homosexuality - that was only a pretext. There are some people in the community who are very angry, probably at what they experienced in their childhood in Christian families (whether or not the behaviour of their abusive parents/guardians had in fact anything truly to do with Christianity), and some of those would never be placated until and unless all Christians end up in the gas chambers.

A peaceful plebiscite would not be sufficient for such people who rather punish the Christians themselves.

The question is, what is a libertarian Senator doing in such company and why would he vote to expand a government function that should not have existed in the first place.

“The polls have always shown substantial majority of public support for same sex marriage in Australia, and if the socially conservative Irish could manage to vote in favour, we would certainly have done it too.”

The polls are rubbish. What people say for fear of being bullied and threatened by Left thugs is different from what they say in the polling booth. This politician would be one of the very few people who doesn't agree with the homos that they would be done in a plebiscite. The Irish, of course, have been so cowered by the priests for so long that they would agree to anything that the priests did not like. We are not Irish.

He can mouth off as much as he likes about how, if the senate had not once again interferred with democracy, homos would be 'marrying' right, left and centre because he knows that his claim will neve be tested now. This politician is among the very worst when it comes to understanding people and how they think.

The only polling figure that is probably near accurate is Turbull's 29% approval rating, which will ensure the frightening election of Labor at the next election. And that's all the queers and freaks need: the socialists will legalise SSM, and the hard Left will then be free to look for even more ways to drag Australia down.

“my approach was to ask politicians of all stripes to recognise that legislating about private relationships was not their job.”

It is not their job to define who is married and who is not but it is their job to define what a couple is so that certain rights and privileges can be afforded couples on the basis of the closeness of their relationship to one another.

They already do this. There is a very precise definition of what constitutes a couple for the sake of distributing those rights. The problem is that they give benefits to married couples that are not available to other couples who have the same level of closeness in their relationship. They actually discriminate in favour of people who have a marriage certificate for no other reason than they have gone through the formality of obtaining the piece of paper.

That piece of paper gives them rights over other couples when all couples should be treated equally. The rights and privileges that the government distributes are human rights and should be given to all who apply and fit the criteria. Obtaining a piece of paper should not give you more advantages over others unless it is evidence of more appropriate worth.

Couples who seek the piece of paper from the government are actually thumbing their nose at their fellow citizens who also live as a couple. The government is doing the wrong thing by discriminating but it does not mean that unmarried couples should be a party to the discrimination.

When the Labor Gillard government extended the definition of de facto and included homosexuals, there was great mirth and celebration among the bureaucrats, lawyers and other professionals who stood to gain mightily themselves, be that from family law disputes or from the employment entitlements that the educated middle class extracted from their employment, with the federal public service for example.

Some delay after, the complaints surfaced from the herd, the lower-class gays who found that while their betters, particularly the gay pollies and middle to senior public bureaucrats did well out of Gillard's (actually the ideologically driven Nicola Roxon's) de facto changes, there was only downside for the less well to do. The public was to hear much wailing that gays actually didn't figure that they had to register their de facto partnerships with Centrelink for instance, because 'de facto' was a concept that was 'alien' to them.

I don't believe that male homosexuals especially ever wanted anything else but to continue their highly flexible 'outlaw' lifestyles, thumbing their noses at the State control and institutionalisation of heterosexual relationships and especially marriage.

Many, most, Gays might reflect now on what brought them to this impasse, where the State now tells them when they are in a relationship and what sort it is. The lawyers make a meal out of the partings that used to be done so informally.

They should never have let those feminists like Roxon sweet talk them into allowing the feminists to lead.. They always were controlling and no, the interests and 'rights' of gays were not their first, or second, or even third concern. The attention-seeking, 'look at moi' serial-activist Gay Pride lot were just window dressing and easily convinced that they were actually managing things. What jokes they are.

Dear Joel,

And why should heterosexuals be discriminated against?

I knew a lady in her 70's who found the love of her life in an older gentleman, but she was careful to visit him only 3 nights a week lest she loses the age pension. What if she too was allowed a highly flexible 'outlaw' lifestyle?

By your account, the gays got what they wanted, but not the homosexuals: "gay" is a political orientation, not a sexual one. It should quite insult a real homosexual to be called that way.

ttbn,

Polls are usually conducted by phone. I hardly think people are going to be too afraid to express their bigoted views to a faceless voice. Whatever helps you to keep your head in the sand, though, I suppose.

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phanto,

Not if de facto couples have the choice to get married too.

<<Couples who seek the piece of paper from the government are actually thumbing their nose at their fellow citizens who also live as a couple.>>

If heterosexual de facto couples want the same rights and responsibilities as married couples, then a couple of hundred bucks and a trip down to the registry office is all they need to arrange that. Why is that too much to ask?

Your flawed reasoning could be applied to any two (or more) people who are bound by a contract versus those who are not.

Your attempt to cry foul comes across as insincere and unconvincing.

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Yuyutsu,

I think it’s time to concede that this distinction you’ve invented between ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay’ really isn’t catching on. Let’s face it, you’re just not going to succeed by limiting it to OLO. How about you write a book about it instead? That's how Richard Dawkins coined the word 'meme'.

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This more socially-acceptable What-is-the-government-doing-in-the-marriage-business-anyway? approach is brilliant! Why didn't anyone think of it in the US when interracial marriage was looking to be legalised in certain states?

Just imagine how petulant and childish it would look if we were to repeal the Marriage Act just because we didn't want a certain group being able to marry, though!

Now that's a good way to further marginalise a minority.