Hi y'all
I remember when miscegenation was a crime in some US States. I recall all kinds of justifications for it being a crime - many of them on display above. In those time many people didn't accept black priests or mixed race churches either. I don't recall much better attitudes here (though I can't recall the same laws - wasn't there something about mixed race babies being given to white couples to ensure a good christian upbringing?).

I'm pretty sure that those who argue against same sex civil unions are well intentioned and see themselves as the protectors of society. So did the anti-miscegenists. Perhaps this is evidence for the slippery slope - allow interracial marriage and the next thing will be homosexual marriage. In which case, on the arguments of those using the slippery slope, they should also be out campaigning to make mixed race marriage illegal in order to reclaim lost ground.

But look at it differently for a bit. If marriage is such a good, powerful, and productive institution as is claimed, why exclude any group of people (note: people, not animals) from its good influence? That would be like excluding people from the good influence of the church - keeping them away from the very institution you believe can influence them for good. Or maybe marriage is so fragile that it must be protected, like the church.

odsoc

That is why it is called Civil Union in the legal system and not gay marraige in the church system. It doen't have anything to do with church, nor is there any agenda to undermine the chuch, or the institution of heterosexual marriage in the church.

Obviously a gay marriage cannot be consecrated, as there will be no eires. Reproduction is not the basis of their relationship, it is actually more pure than that, it is simply love itself, not reproduction, not approval, and not a family agreement. Love needs no concecration, or an eirie to prove the worthiness of a wife.

Civil union doesn't attempt to give real equal rights in a lesbians and gay men in a country as unfair and as backward as Australia, when you realise we are one of the last western countries to do make this move. It simply offers a comprimise where the outcome is similar, more modern, and we avoid a the 'ancien regime' known to sabotage a moment when people should be celebrating. We are, as you say celebrating the commitment to two consenting adults. The "old-wive's-tales" from mean pruned lips are irrelevant.

I hope when the time comes when lesbians and gay men don't have to fly to Candada to feel like equal human beings, to have their love as a basis of their life recognised.

Oh Candada! how pathetic Australia is....

Reason, to answer your Questions

1. I am not anti-gay as you put it. For me same-sex sodomy or lesbianism is an abnormal behaviour that should only be recognised in the clinical / criminal realms. There is nothing 'gay' about unnatural pathetic lustful antisocial conduct of so called “consenting adults”.

2. Since these fornicators have decided to indulge in immoral activities, why should society bend backwards (or forward depending on your inclinations) to allow them “rights” to harm themselves and others?

HARM? To all who believe that it’s ‘live and let live’; I concur with BOAZ_David that allowing same-sex perverts to teach our children is highly objectionable and immensely harmful.

I also know that this is happening in our schools. We can only blame ourselves as a society for allowing our collective moral values to slide so below the “acceptable” decent level that we became numb and unobjectionable to it all.

One has to turn on the TV – at any time of the day mind you – to watch the “legally” permissible standard of decadence. And that is what we are teaching our kids: – anything goes as long as you don’t hurt anybody. Eh?

We have allowed our children to get so morally deficient that they no longer recognise right from wrong.

To make things worse we (society) have allowed our vocabulary to “sweeten” felony to render it more pleasant. E.g. Adultery = having an affair. Homosexual practices = gay couples. Pre-marital sex = living together. Fornication = de facto relationship etc…

Same-sex should not have conjugal rights more than murderers should have a TV and a kitchenette in their cells, or for muslems to form their own parliament...

Woah, coach, after reading your weird and intemperate post, the only thought I was left with was that I would much rather anyone teach my children than someone like you.
I would certainly want to keep you as far away as possible from any young person who might be struggling with their own sexuality.
I often think the righteous do much more harm than the sinner because of their inability to see themselves as just another struggling human being and so exercise compassion, humility and wisdom.
Those are the qualities I'd want in someone teaching my children, I really couldn't care less what they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms with another consenting adult.

Indeed, the recent posts from coach and boaz-david have me deeply worried that THEY may in fact live next door and teach any future children I may have to be intolerant and judgemental.

Surely we as a society should be pleased that people are seeking to enter into a monogamous life-long committment? We reward such behaviour in the majority of the community, why not the minority also?

A couple of my friends are same-sex oriented, and truly, the fact that James loves a John rather than a Jane really does not impact on the integrity and love and respect that my relationship should and is accorded. I'd rather people were honest about themselves and who they wish to be with than trying to live a lie and make themselves and others miserable.

As I am in my mid-twenties, and my views are shared by almost all of my peer group, I can only assume that like such horrid modern innovations such as cross-racial marriages, women working, and television (all which were to bring down society at some point), that the day will come when James can marry John and have his relationship celebrated in the same manner as if he were to marry Jane.

Soon may that day come, that people will see that the sky will not fall on heterosexual marriages, or even society.

Seems like Gay marriage has become the symbol for modernity and progress. Allowing gay marriage, in some peoples eyes will show what a truly progressive society we have become.

What if someone is bisexual, and that person wanted a husband and a wife. Do we strive for fairness and equality and allow a polygamous marriage?

Some indicate oppostion to same sex marriage is hatred. Homosexuals have a habit of playing this oppressed minority card. Common sense should prevail, not some ideologically driven agenda. All same sex couples are infertile. Only some heterosexual couples are infertile. Our existence depends on heterosexuality. Marriage is a heterosexual union.

Issues like inheritance don't require gay marriage, nor does a hospital visit. It requires a change in the will or a chat to the hospital staff.

The truth is many homosexuals are anti society evidenced in pride marches which habitually mock religion and the traditional nuclear family.

Next on the agenda will be the right for gays to divorce. Never ends.