Special pleading, HermanYutic.

>>To change the marriage laws from a man and a woman to two consenting adults would forever preclude Muslims from practising their sincerely held religious belief.<<

To illustrate how nonsensical this is, let us imagine for a moment that the law was indeed changed to allow homosexuals to marry.

This would by definition allow Muslims to do so.

And Christians too.

As well as non-Muslims and non-Christians

It is therefore an action that has absolutely nothing to do with "practising... sincerely held religious belief"

Which is entirely as it should be.

What your, or any other, faith allows or disallows is not at all relevant in this case.

If you Christians suddenly decided to go back to the good old days when you happily sacrificed goats and stuff, it would be frowned upon by a society that had, for want of a better phrase, moved on.

Marriage is above all a societal, not a religious issue. To decide unilaterally to claim it in the name of religion is a meaningless act, and is, quite appropriately, ignored by the rest of us.

Once again, I suggest that you do some research on the topic before making ridiculous assumptions.

>>Shame on all SSM proponents who would allow homosexual marriage while denying polygamous marriage (Islamic or otherwise).<<

It is, as I have pointed out, entirely irrelevant that someone's religion allows this, or disallows that. We exist in a society that long since decided that adherence to one particular religious code is a recipe for disharmony, and determined to make decisions in deliberate ignorance of the preferences of any individual sect.

Special pleading, Pericles.
You propose altering the marriage laws to include one particular aberrant sexual behaviour while excluding other aberrant sexual behaviours.
You claim a clear demarcation between the societal and religious sphere when it suits you.
However if a church refused to “marry” a homosexual couple you would be the first to scream discrimination.
What you would impose then, is the “right” for someone to marry based on their sexual behaviour but denying that “right” based on religious belief.
Given that a far greater percentage of the world’s population hold to religious beliefs than practise homosexuality, it could be argued that there is a stronger case for genetic/biological causation of religious predisposition than there is for homosexual behaviour.
There is abundant evidence that the vast majority of religious people can no more disavow their religiosity than can homosexuals abandon their sexual practices.
It would be interesting to compare the number of ex-Muslims as a percentage of the Muslim population to the number of ex-gays as a percentage of the homosexual population.
I wonder which heretic group is more persecuted by the remaining believers

The Federal Register is of Births, Marriages, and Deaths. WHY? It is to record family relationships of persons who are legal citizens so they receive citizens rights and priviledges. If children are born of that relationship they are recorded as having a mother and father, never two mothers, never two fathers. It is a physical imposibility! This is the uninteligent track that the proponents of the myth of same sex parents want us to take.

Next door to us lived a mother with three children to different fathers, no father living in the home. She moved out to live with her new boyfriend and sent the youngest child just six to live permantly with his father. The fifteen year old girl was sent to live with her father because she played truant and brought home girls and boys to indulge in all types of perverted sexual practises. The father allowed her to sleep in his home with any boy she fancied. This left the 17 year old son next door who invited his friends to move in. Every weekend was a drunken sexual orgy of between 15 - 17 teenagers. Fortunately we have managed to have them evicted after several police visits at 3am in the morning from the townhouse complex.

I have a former work colleague and close friend who also attends the same church as myself. He before he became a Christian was a practising homosexual, but on accepting Christ as Lord he knew he had to deny himself such perverted acts. He still enjoys the company of men but has no desire to have sex with them as his faith in the purity of Christianity gives him fulfilment in other ways. He is an exceptional musician and a talented craftsman.

He holds his former life was a perversion. he had one elder brother, no sisters but a dominating mother who wanted a daughter.

Still special pleading, HermanYutic.

I can drive a car on the roads, but not an armoured troop carrier. By your rationale, if we allow the one, we must allow the other as a matter of course. So why don't we?

Similar examples abound. Why can you buy paracetemol from a supermarket, but not methamphetamine?

Why can you legally participate in a boxing match, but not in a knife fight?

Society (i.e. us) is perfectly capable of judging different propositions on their own merit, which is why polygamy isn't relevant to this discussion. The "slippery slope" argument is stale and hollow.

And, of course, you've missed the richest irony: by your own reasoning, if we allow Christians to worship in accordance with their beliefs, we must therefore allow members of any existing cult or religion to behave as they see fit, no matter how brutal or antisocial.

Sancho
"And, of course, you've missed the richest irony:" when we legitimise homosexuality, they feel emboldened "to behave as they see fit, no matter how brutal or antisocial".
Witness the criminal retribution by homosexuals against those who voted for Proposition 8 in California.
Witness the masturbating from the balconies, the public oral and anal sex at places like the Folsom St Fair when homosexuals know that they are a protected species.
Witness the increasingly strident demands to allow anonymous sex in public places because it's part of the "homosexual culture".
I've got a great idea.
Let's teach the kiddies that all this is normal and desirable.