Coach

There are no "choices" involved. Just as you, a straight person, can't "choose" to be gay, a gay person can't "choose" to be straight, and nor should they.

There is nothing wrong with being gay and as for what the Bible supposedly says...

Should I also stone to death my neighbour whom I know is having an affair?

And after I've murdered him, would it then be okay for me to sit down to a nice plate of shellfish for dinner?

Not according to the Bible.

It seems the "sin" of homosexuality is the only thing Christians follow strictly from the Bible - the rest is not applicable to today's times.

If you're not willing to stone to death an adulterer, then why are you willing to accept society's discrimination against gays and lesbians?

Coach: your attitude is sadly typical of "Christians" who have hatred in their heart and try to rationalise it by saying they "hate the sin, not the sinner". By that very twisted logic, one could conclude that they don't hate women, merely the "sin" of being female.

I know it is necessary for you to believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice to validate your prejudices, so that you can then construct your fear and hatred around a "chosen lifestyle" but many people, a lot of Christians included, see past this charade.

Jogging 5kms a day is a lifestyle choice. Buying fetta cheese at the deli instead of ricotta is a lifestyle choice. I no more chose to be gay than you "chose" to be straight - or, for that matter, to be a Christian.

Homosexuals should not have to feel "grateful" for anything - it is a right, not a privilege, for those of us in long-term relationships to expect full rights as law-abiding, tax-paying civil citizens.

In fact, if you had read my post properly and not selectively, you would have seen I talk about responsibilities as much as I talk about rights. Gay people realise full equality necessarily entails both these things.

You can imply I am selfish and inconsiderate of others' feelings all you want, but I know this is not true and I know it's not true for the vasy majority of my gay and lesbian friends and family.

I really struggle to understand how people can get all 'ooh its going to tear about our society if we let men marry men and women marry women'. Really? Why? Are all the straight people out there suddenly going to decide they are gay?

As a straight person with gay friends, I fail to see how stopping my friends from making public statements about their love and committment 'holds up' our society. I guess we'll have to give it fifty years or so, as most surveys show younger people are pro-gay marriage (or dont care), so presumeably the laws will eventually change.

Eh. Meant to say "tear apart" not "tear about". Damn not proof-reading.

What tends to overshadow this debate about same-sex civil unions is the moral debate about the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality. But that is not actually the real issue here because unless i'm mistaken it is not against the law to be gay or act gay, so the moralists have already lost out on that one as far as the law is concerned.
The issue is whether or not the entitlement of marriage and the various legal benefits and protections that accompany it should be extended to include two people of the same sex or should the discrimination remain as man + woman only. You could argue about semantics but that is really just a superficiality. As for the morality arguement, it may have some weight but it seems to be more of a last ditch effort by moralists to defend the remaining few areas of the gay-rights battlefield that they still hold. And as far as Christian moralists go, they may well be correct that acts of homosexuality are a sin or abomination in the eyes of God, but isn't that for God to judge and not the place of man to pass judgement on his fellows?

I don't see a problem with same sex marriages, after all, marriage isn't what it used to be.

There used to be a thing called the marriage 'contract', which one side could only depart from with a good reason, established before the Courts. Now there is no contract, and marriage is essentially meaningless anyway. It is just a piece of paper, that no longer serves to keep people together.

Many of the changes in relationships are positive: no one could now argue that a man has the inaliable right to sex with his wife just because they are married. Marriage is also not seen as a justification for domestic violence or a right of control over another persons finances and behaviour.

Children born out of wedlock are no longer seen as disadvantaged and cannot be discriminated against.

And look at the words: wedding, marriage, wedlock: they all imply a permanence of the joining of two people. This concept is so patently old fashioned that maybe we should look at different words for the relationship, because what happens today is certainly are certainly not weddings, marriages and wedlocks.

Even the idea of the family is gone, as evidenced by a recent TV advert about a "people mover" with the variety of 'families' featured.

So what is marriage good for? If it is good for anything then maybe society should strengthen it, to maybe force people to consider that it is not to be entered into lightly, with some form of penalties for those breaking the 'contract', instead of the continued weakening of the institution of marriage that has happened since 1975 in Australia.

If not, then declare marriage open to anyone, in any form of close personal relationship, maybe even the recognition of plural marriages?

What is there to lose that hasn't already been lost?