Rodney Croome claims that marriage reform is needed for equal treatment under the law. The last time I checked homosexuals were allowed to marry a person of the opposite sex the same as everyone else. Therefore this has nothing to do with equal rights it is all about special rights. However lies such as these will continue to be spread by the promoters of sexual perversion who remain under the delusion that a homosexual relationship can be equal to that of a normal relationship.

The reason marriage is a public institution is because it recognises the natural union of a man and a woman, enabling children to be raised in a safe and healthy environment for reproduction of the human race. The Government has a duty to provide for the health and general well being of it's citizens. The negative health effects of the homosexual lifestyle have been well documented and it would be irresponsible for a Government to officially endorse such behaviour and disrupt the social norm just to allow a small minority to feel better about themselves.

Also, sexual activity between two people of the same sex is against the natural purpose for which we were created and is clearly condemned by God in the Bible (Lev. 18:22, 20:13, Rom. 1:24-32, 1Co. 6:9). Jesus tells us in Mat. 19:4-5 exactly what constitutes a marriage.

Well done Argon, U lived up to each one of my predictions in my post above:
ie, its not natural, god doesn't like it, disrupts the norm etc, etc, aaah the narrow world of the self righteous.

Anyway I'm impressed because the 6 posts preceding argon's are all in support of Rodney's article.

Maybe there's hope for a more tolerant world yet.

This is pure wishful thinking by Rodney Croome.

The Constitution makes it crystal clear that marriage law lies exclusively under the jurisdiction of the federal govt.

Saying that the ammendment of the Marriage Act now makes the law only apply to heterosexual marriage just highlights how so many activists have abandoned all rationality in favour of incoherent jibberish.

Gay activists want marriage (although funnily enough, most gays themselves couldn't care less about marriage - they don't want to be bound by such restrictive - as they see it - institutions), but the Marriage Act explicitly excludes them by definition. Therefore, distinguishing between same-sex marriage and heterosexual marriage is begging the question ie. assuming the truth of precisely the thing you are trying to prove.

The Constituion also excludes the states from making any such law. This was the case when states were collecting fuel excises. That was unconstitutional and the fed govt had to do it on their behalf.

And contra George Williams, the well known lefty law professor, Hell will freeze over before the High Court (apart from a bench with 4 Michael Kirbys) would allow such a law.

In any case, gay activist need to face political reality. The conservative vote in Australia in huge (and I'm not just referring to church goers) whereas the gay vote - despite the noise gay activists make - is miniscule. Governments all over the country are beginning to realise this and realise - as Nicola Roxon and the ALP did last year - that a government who legalises or attempts to legalise gay marriage is committing political suicide.

real rob, Mollydukes: Due to the limits on Commonwealth power and the legislation that relies on the matrimonial causes power (ie. most of the family law act) there is no prospect of getting the government out of marriage. I doubt that most who support the ban would be open to any political compromise and I don't think there are any real definitional issues.

Why are people against the word being used inclusively? If people saw it solely as a religious institution (whose religion?) then the present system would be equally unacceptable. They do not want to associate homosexual relationships with their own, they want them to be considered differently and they believe that there is a considerable distinction. An inclusive position marks homosexual and heterosexual relationships as being equal, and clearly some are not comfortable with only their religion being discriminatory.

If marriage was merely "the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life." then divorce would not be possible and polygamy would be a nonsense word. Those against marriage rights today will not be seen in the same accepting light as those who had supported past immoral practices.

About a third of Argon's post is true, the rest is just tired old falsehoods and shody reasoning. Aslan's has a bit more meat:
"The Constitution makes it crystal clear that marriage law lies exclusively under the jurisdiction of the federal govt."
"The Constituion also excludes the states from making any such law."
These two statements are absolutely, without doubt, dead wrong -- that stuff was thrown out in the 1920s. Did you read the article Aslan? A state law inconsistent with federal law will be invalid, otherwise the states are free to legislate on the subject.

The marriage act certainly does not explicitly exclude marriage for homosexuals -- the definition section serves only to explain what the word means in the legislation. If it had said 'marriage shall be' instead of '"marriage" means' then it would have explicitly excluded marriage for homosexuals, but it would not have been by definition.

I can't believe we are even having this debate. There is no way that any intelligent person could swallow the arguments propagated by Croome and Williams.

First of all, the argument about the Federal government failing to properly limit marriage. It is manifestly clear, that in the climate that the Federal government was operating, the Marriage Act was further defined specifically to respond to homosexual couples seeking to have their Canadian 'marriage' recognised in the Family Court. In this way, the definition of marriage was intended by parliament to be a full statement on the status of both heterosexual and homosexual marriage.

If one was to refer to the High Court decision of Telstra v Worthing (1999) 197 CLR 61 at 76 [28] one would find this statement:

"Moreover, if it appears from the terms, the nature or the subject mattter of a Federal enactment that it was intended as a complete statment of the law governing a particular matter or set of rights and duties, then for a State law to regulate or apply to the same matter or relation is regarded as a detraction from the full operation of the Commonwealth law and so is inconsistent".

It simply cannot be any clearer. This is merely a publicity stunt by gay activists to relaunch the debate into society in the vain hope that, if society is bombarded enough, people will magically become sympathetic. Highly unlikely.

And I can't believe Em's ignorance of what this is all about. It is do with equality and human rights. That is the perspective of many of us in the gay and lesbian rights movement. And we will continue to lobby around this issue as we have done previously on the issue of decriminalisation of homosexual acts.

And bad news for the likes of Em and Aslan. Continual lobbying in order to achieve decriminalisation of homosexuality has been a success in Australia in every state and territory. Once it was considered perfectly reasonable for homosexuality to be a criminal offence. Now it isn't. We won. Get used to it, as they say.

We will also win on the issue of same-sex marriage. Probably not anytime soon as we have only just started working on this issue. But we will keep doing what we have to do so as to achieve our aims. And our success will be to do with the fact that gay rights are part of overall human rights in a democratic, capitalist framework.

The right to be a homophobe is old hat - akin with a backward mediaevalism that has died out in most democratic countries.