At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious, you haven't actually given a reason why the foul should not have been called.

Austin Powerless: >>I wonder if you included children and animals with your 21st Century thoughts. Or even machines (I love my car).<<

Pericles: >>"man and woman", "man and man" and "woman and woman" are all subsets of "consenting adults". Children, animals and Austin Powerless' car, are not.<<

Philo came back with the nonsense statement that:

>>Obviously you do not live in a real world where these things are practised and approved of and frequently promoted.<<

Oh really? By whom are these "practised and approved of and frequently promoted", Philo? Even taking into account that Austin Powerless was joking about his car? (Actually, given his alias, maybe he is the car in question?)

HermanYutic tries the bait-and-switch tactic.

>>The point you carefully overlook is that "father and adult daughter", "mother and adult son", "father and adult son" and "mother and adult daughter" are all subsets of "consenting adults".<<

Once again, for clarity: children, animals and Austin Powerless' car, are not.

>>I suppose I could also list all the various possible menages a trois, quatre, cinq, etc, made up of "consenting adults" <<

I'm sure you could, HermanYutic. You clearly obsess about these things.

I notice also that you also bring up NAMBLA...

>>Paekida...NAMBLA...These groups are fighting for the legitimacy of man/boy relationships<<

...are you deliberately channeling Boaz/Polycarp? He was obsessed by these weirdos as well.

What you don't make clear is what relevance they have to the subject at hand.

Thanks for that info Woulfe, I was beginning to wonder if I was fighting a one-person battle against insurmountable, mad websites!

After reading some of those insane US sites, I reckon if Australia agrees to legalize Gay marriage, we could be under threat of war from them!

At the end of the day, I really don't see how Gay Marriage is ever going to get passed in this country, unless the Americans and British go first.

Dear Herman,

This is for your information...

You claim that "only 2%" of the population is gay
and are therefore unworthy of civil rights.

Two percent of the Australian population is a lot
of people, over 400,000. More people than attend
the Anglican church services every week. It's a
crowd of people that would fill five MCGs!
(Melbourne Cricket Ground).

By way of comparison the entire membership of the
(Pentecostal) Assemblies of God denomination - which
provides support to groups like the Australian Christian
Lobby and the Family First - totals only 160,000.
(Muriel Porter, 'Moderates drowned out by religious right
shrill,' Melbourne Age, 30 Mar. 2005).

I'm sure that these Christian organisations wouldn't be
calling for tiny Christian sects to be stripped of
government money to run their own schools on the basis of
their size.

Besides, many gays would never declare the true nature
of their sexuality for fear of religious and
other persecutions.
Statisticians themselves (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
acknowledge this problem:

"The Australian Bureau of Statistics recognises the
limitations of its own information. In its study into
same-sex couples for the '2005 Year Book Australia,'
statisticians acknowledged people's 'reluctance to
identify as being in a same-sex defacto marriage and
lack of knowledge that same-sex relationships couple
counted as such in the census.' (Annette Binger,
'Happy Family,' Sunday Life, 27 March 2005, 22).

There's a book that may be quite informative for you -
It's called:

"Doing It Down Under: The Sexual Lives of Australians."
by Juliet Richters and Chris Rissel. (paperback).
Allen & Unwin Academic (Oct. 28, 2005).

It's the most comprehensive survey ever of Australia's
sexual lives and habits.

Julie Richters has worked in sex research and education
for more that 20 years and Chris Rissel has worked in
all aspects of health promotion research and practice
with a focus on sexual health.

It's quite revealing - and educational.

"Moderates drowned out extreme left shrill"
Foxy,
There are likely at least as many Muslims in Australia as there are homosexuals.
Shouldn't we then legalise polygamous marriage?
If not, why not?
They would fill just as many cricket grounds.
You might not want to pack them into the same stadiums though or there could be trouble.
BTW, what's depriving people of educational funding got to do with SSM?

Thanks to Herman/KMB for providing a veritable litany of homophobic lies and distortions. At least s/he's more honest than others who disingenuously pretend that their opposition to gay marriage is based on protecting gay people from State interference.

I'm thinking that a variation of Godwin's Law might apply to OLO discussions about homosexuality. Something like "As an OLO discussion concerning homosexual rights grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nambla or paedophilia approaches 1".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

I'm not vain enough to call it Morgan's Law - which would sound too piratical anyway. Perhaps "Pericles' Law" would denote a suitable gravitas, appropriate to the extent to which comments involving ambla or paedophilia in such discussions should be taken seriously.

You are clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel, HermanYutic

>>There are likely at least as many Muslims in Australia as there are homosexuals. Shouldn't we then legalise polygamous marriage?<<

The logic behind this observation is impenetrable.

That is akin to saying that "there are far more vegetarians in Australia than Anglicans. Shouldn't we then outlaw eating meat?"

It is nonsensical on so many levels.

Almost as daft as this earlier offering:

>>You dismiss thousands of years of marriage between man and woman as not being validated<<

"Thousands of years", HermanYutic?

I strongly suggest that you treat yourself to some enlightenment on the topic. There are plenty of references, starting with good ol' Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage

Take off those rose-tinted spectacles, for a start.

"For most of European history, marriage was more or less a business agreement between two families who arranged the marriages of their children. Romantic love, and even simple affection, were not considered essential"

Then think about this:

"The legal institution of marriage and its rules and ramifications have changed over time depending on the culture or demographic of the time"

The history of marriage has been far from static, as you try to suggest, and will continue to evolve as society evolves. The Romans, in fact, had a wide variety of marriages - confarreatio, coemptio, usus, and sine manu - each with its own set of rules

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/marriage/a/RomanMarriage.htm

This "different forms under one heading" approach could quite easily form a model for modern times.

The fact that your religion finds homosexuality distasteful is a concern in itself. Whom to hate really should be a matter for you to decide, rather than be thrust upon you.

But that's entirely your problem. Just don't think you can continue to impose your arcane vision of what marriage should or shouldn't be, on the rest of us.