I think the discussion has drifted away from the original point (as I perceive it) which is not whether or not being gay is morally acceptable but whether or not a majority has a right to enforce their morallity on others.

Governments and laws are there to protect people. If no harm is being caused there is nothing to protect people from, so therefore it is clearly something that is not the business of anyone else.

If you don't like gays, surely the easiest option is not to associate with them? It is not as though they are coming and asking you to convert to Gay-dom. I am just saying how is it your business?

It is not a role of governments to tell us what to think nor to legislate to control what we do in our personal lives.

Timkins

47% of heterosexual marriages in Australia currently end in divorce. Many heterosexuals get married and choose not to have children, so why do they get married? Same reasons some gay and lesbian people want to get married... commit to the person you love in front of your friends and family, openly share an intention to stay together 'forever', and let's not forget the legal and financial privileges (and responsibilities) which come with being married. Also, there are religious gay and lesbian people who want to get married in an accepting Church. Why should they be denied their faith just because of their sexuality?

You are confusing AI with IVF. The vast majority of lesbians fall pregnant using AI with donor sperm, quite often in their own homes. In these situations, the donor is known to the child from conception and often has an ongoing role in the child's life. Only lesbians who are MEDICALLY infertile access IVF. To be proven medically infertile you have to have tried to fall pregnant for about 1 year. The number of lesbians accessing IVF treatment for infertility is minimal. For example, in Perth there have been 40 lesbian couples access IVF in the last 5 years. And the out of pocket expense each time is around $2,500. Where a heterosexual infertile couple can get a rebate through the Medicare Safety Net after they've spent $300 out of pocket, a lesbian couple must reach $1400 before they can claim a rebate (because they're not considered a couple Federally). So a lesbian couple pays more for their infertility treatment anyway. If there's anything you want to know about AI/IVF, I'm happy to respond.

"Another problem would come with divorce of homosexual couples. From what I understand, divorce rates for gay marriage are generally higher than hetrosexual marriage."

This is a particularly interesting comment because if gay marriage is illegal here, how do you come to the conclusion that their divorce rates are higher? They're not getting married in the first place

Timkins

I'm going to attempt to answer your earlier questions on IVF.

- Donor parents (either men or women) can be quite unavailable to the child, because they live in a different country to where the child is born (and this is becoming more common.)

In Australia, sperm cannot be imported from overseas, so this is an unlikely situation. Sperm donors in Australia will generally live in Australia.

- Donor parents can have many children living in many countries, and they may not have much bonding with any of those children.

See the above comment about the importation of sperm into or out of Australia. Unlikely that an Australian citizen would have a child in many countries because of the limitations of importing/exporting sperm.

- Arranged meetings or contact between donor parents and the IVF child are not necessarily satisfactory for either party.

No different to arranged meetings between 'absent' fathers or mothers of children born to heterosexual couples not accessing fertility treatment. On the flipside, these meetings can also be quite positive for all involved.

- Higher rates of birth defects for IVF children than with normal children, and they don't know why

Yes, there is a slightly higher rate of birth defects - some studies suggest the link is in relation to the age of the women accessing IVF for infertility treatment. It IS only slight, however. You want to ban IVF for all infertile people?

- Lower rate of pregnancy as the mother gets older, requiring more intrusive and often traumatic IVF treatments.

True, but it's not your trauma. An infertile woman/couple choose to undergo treatment and they access extensive counselling at the clinics to help cope with this very thing. It's not up to you or anyone else to dictate to an infertile woman/couple what treatment they receive or for how long.

- IVF industry is often driven by money, and can become very commercialised (not necessarily a moral industry)

Possibly, but there are also many clinics which are public - not so driven by the dollar.

- IVF is moving towards genetically modified children, or "made to order" children. Is this moral?

Please be more specific. Are you talking about pre-implantation genetic testing for hereditary disease, sex selection to avoid hereditary disease... or what?

There is another forum discussing IVF. Here the issue is that W.A. is discriminating against gays by back peddling on previous laws. IS this fair? Well discrimination is not fair and flys in the face of democracy. Anti gay laws will not make homosexuality go away - it occurs everywhere in the animal kingdom, of which we humans are a part. As for whether gays are good or bad parents, just like other human beings there are good homosexuals and bad homosexuals. I hope this is simple enough for the god bothering homophobes out there.

HOMO AGOGO

Aslan said it all, I dont think I need to repeat it to you.
The issues u raised from your assumptions are too broad to cover in s short post here, so I wont.

JCL your comment is typical of the gay lobby. Its a lot like the public/PR face of Islam "Ours is a religion of peace" which is patently not true. In the case of the gay lobby. We KNOW what the agenda is and while it might not be YOURS personally, there are others ..Deputy Mayor of Melbourne "Lets make Melb the gay capital of Australia".. do I really need to say anything about "Cultural Texture and Social change" ???? and how such a situation might effect our feeling of being Melbournians or Australians ? Sorry..but it should be abundantly clear from just one comment like that, that the agenda is NOT 'peacefully being left alone to follow our choices' its LETS MAKE THIS HUGE !!!
When the rubber meets the road there is only ONE rule for competing lifestyles and that is "Rule...or be ruled". So, that is where it has been placed by the gay lobby, and we will meet it at that level.
Nothing personal, but everything political and social :)

RINGTAIL
if u keep on persisting in coming down into my shower, and sleeping there, I'll have to put a wire mesh over the top to stop you !
(there is a Ringtail possum which comes down for a drink during dry weather.. gets in..but can't get out, I find it there surrounded by poo in the morning. Our shower is outside under a verandah.)

As for the issues.. I think we have exausted the topic. Only democratic forces will determine how we approach the issue.
It will boil down to one group feeling disenfranchized, no matter which way things go.