With the gay marriage debate raging once I again, I fear that if we allow the act to be changed to accommodate these people, this will just be the tip of the ice berg because I doubt they will be satisfied with just being allowed to marry.

What happens if a church chooses not to marry them, or, as many like myself simply won't recognize them as being married in the way I am.

The simple solution is to amend the act allowing for a second, even a third or fourth verse, like, two people, a man and a man or a woman and a woman.

What's the problem with that.

Of cause the gays would suggest that's not allowing them to be recognized as being equal, but hang on, they're not equal in marriage and never can be because they are of the same sex.

No one is going to insist that it be made legal for churches to marry them.

Men and men as well as woman and woman are equal it is only in bigoted minds like yours that they are not equal.

rehctub, The very fact intense emotion is shown toward you by ponde is evidence there is serious division between sections of society. If you do not agree with her you are a bigot. Yes homosexuals wanting marriage will challenge any celebrant who refuses to marry them as man and wife in court, as it to homosexuals it is discrimination.

NOTE: the big issue for them is "DISCRIMINATION", and they think by changing the law that will change social attitude. It won't of course as is evidenced by states that have allowed same sex marriage. They do not recognise they are using the term identifying the reproductive system, "sex"; and any intelligent person knows that they are not biologically married.

I know where you're coming from, rehctub. I have had similar concerns about interracial couples and their "marriages".

We don't even know what their children are when they're born. Are they black, white, yellow?

Their marriages can never be equal to mine. Now if a church has a problem with marrying an interracial couple, they can be sued for racial discrimination!

Homosexuality at least occurs in nature. Two people of different races never paired up until the multiculturalists started our culture's downward spiral into self-distruction. Interracial "marriage" is unnatural and an abomination, and I will never accept it.

The word "marriage" was taken. Why couldn't they find their own word!

//and any intelligent person knows that they are not biologically married.//

Like elephant seals, where one dominant male gets to service a harem of 40 to 50 females? Sign me up for some of this 'biological marriage' business ;)

You fat elephant seal!

I am most concerned where in these days, of dare I say it, shocking egalitarianism, young ladies of breeding and refinement, are, heaven forbid, marrying outside their social class! Just the other day, whilst at croquet, I was distressed, nee mortified, to be informed of a young eligible thing from a most respectable Tookak family, of substance, banking I believe, has been betrothed to one, who I can only describe as being of the roughen socially undesirable order, no less. I believe a butcher chap from Moonee Ponds, shocking indeed! Not that I have anything against butcher chaps, besides, who else is there to prepare a nice cut of my favorite eye fillet. Without the butcher, dare I say it, we could all be reduced to eating, sausages or something even more ghastly, minced meat, oh the thought.
Naturally, it goes without saying both the young lady in question, and he mom's membership of The All Tookak Croquet Club has been terminated forthwith, and I duly expect daddy will be "persona non gratas" no less, at the golf club. Next thing you know we will be subjected to one of those tradesmen's vehicles, possible a Datsun, parked in a Tookak driveway, in the very spot where the Bentley once resided! Disgraceful in the extreme. This practice has to stop, otherwise society as we know it will simply cease to exist!

Oh, the horror, Paul1405! And what of the children? Are they rich? Are they poor? Are they new money? Old money?

Now, when children see two people of different social classes together, we're going to have to explain sex to them in graphic detail.

Soon enough, people will want to start marrying their carriages!

Is there no such thing as decent society anymore?

It seems that many people seem to have a clear idea
of how other people should lead their lives -
viewing their own patterns of marriage, family,
and kinship as self-evidently right and proper, (and
usually as God-given as well).

They assume that there is only one "right" family and
marriage form, and of course they naturally interpret any
change as heralding the doom of the whole institution.

What they fail to recognise is that there already exists
an immense range of marriage, family, and kinship patterns.
I won't go into an analysis of family patterns. Enough to
say that many
people's entire way of thinking about marriage has changed.
It is now viewed less as an economic arrangement or a kinship
alliance, and more as a companionship based on the
emotional commitment of two individuals. In industrialised societies,
traditional family patterns have given way to others that
are better adapted to the changed conditions of social and
economic life.

I personally believe that politicians should be allowed a
conscience vote on the issue and as for the public - a Referendum
would be a good way to let the country decide what it wants.

Foxy, the examples you give do not identify what life long commitment is to family. You a lot of PC nonsense.

You said,"It is now viewed less as an economic arrangement or a kinship
alliance, and more as a companionship based on the
emotional commitment of two individuals. In industrialised societies,
traditional family patterns have given way to others that
are better adapted to the changed conditions of social and
economic life."

Business partners fulfil your view of marriage in that definition.

Ponde,

"No one is going to insist that it be made legal for churches to marry them."

Not until after the Marriage Act is changed, then the push will be for "true equality" and church marriages, especially in the Roman Rite of Catholicism.

There was a report on the ABC that discrimination against homosexuals was on the rise; I wonder why as we're told that the majority of Australians favour SSM?

Paul, old chap,

You are after missing the point, with the price of meat these days the butcher will buy a Bentley for himself and not one of those pseudo Bentleys that they make these days, but a genuine Derby one; if necessary he will have it restored to original.

Dear Josephus,

In modern, industrialised societies it is generally
assumed that marriage is founded on romantic love
between the partners and that the choice of a mate
should be left to the individual. But this concept
of romantic love is entirely unknown in many
societies and is considered laughable or tragic in many
others. In most traditional societies, marriage is
regarded as a practical economic arrangement, or a
matter of family alliances, not a love match.

Throughout history, in fact, alliances between entire
societies have been sealed by marrying a person of one
royal family to a person of another.

In the past century, for example Ibn Saud a local
Arabian chieftain married over 300 women of various tribes
binding these groups into the country now called Saudi Arabia.

In many traditional societies, therefore marriage is
negotiated by the parents of the partners often with little
or no consideration of their children's wishes. If love
is a feature of these marriages at all, it is expected to be
a result and not a cause of the union.

The economic aspect of these marriages is especially
apparent in those societies in which an intending partner must
pay a price to his prospective father-in-law. This
practice is especially widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, where
nearly all the tribes expect to exchange cattle for the
marriage.

This was a meme about 35 years ago
3% of the population are gay but how much time and effort are people using to justify this ?
Reality time We have a declining birth rate in Australia is this going to fix this problem ? NO
Live your Life how you want but don't keep trying to force your life choices on everyone else
The gay's have done a brilliant job of brain washing people that this is exceptionable behavior, Good on you how to manipulate the system in only a few years.
Let's get back to more traditional ideas about Families because it is the ONLY thing that will save us in the end

Dear Rehctub,

<<What happens if a church chooses not to marry them>>

One possible outcome is martyrdom, with prisons filling up with defiant clergy, or as no space is left there, them being fed to the lions at the zoo.

More likely, churches will officially stop marrying anyone and heterosexual marriage rites would go underground and be performed secretly in private homes (so use blue-tack on all your camera eyes).

The gay-marriage community would still do their utmost to detect illegal religious marriages and inform the authorities - they would for example look for couples who go on a honeymoon and encourage the government to check their phone-call records to see whether they were in contact with a priest just before.

Religious people will no longer register for legal marriage and thus be considered "de facto", so this would likely prompt the gay-marriage people to ban de-facto relationships or extra-marital sex. However, since the urge is unbeatable, we would end up like Iran with temporary-marriages (Official: "how long would this marriage be?"; Couple: "4 hours, Sir"; Official: "that would be $25, thank you").

The interesting question, though, is what happens if churches DID choose to marry homosexuals - the last thing these gay-marriage people enjoy is to burst into open doors thus having nowhere to vent their puerile anger!

Yuyutsu, "we would end up like Iran with temporary-marriages (Official: "how long would this marriage be?"; Couple: "4 hours, Sir"; Official: "that would be $25, thank you")"

Or to look at it another way, a lesbian would go on her second date with the U-Haul trailer of her personal kit AND her wedding dress.

Meanwhile in the ACT, the bullying, hysterical Twits of Twitterti that are the usual informants of public opinion according to the news-making media and 'fact-finding(LOL) ABC, have declared that a married couple to be 'HOMOPHOBIC' because they intend to divorce if SSM is introduced.

<Nick Jensen threatens to divorce in protest of gay marriage in Canberra CityNews article

A CANBERRA couple has announced their intention to divorce if gay people are allowed to get married too.
Nick Jensen, who posed with his wife Sarah on the cover of the latest issue of Canberra CityNews, writes of the Christian couple’s decision to end their marriage under the headline, “Gay law change may force us to divorce”.
“My wife and I just celebrated our 10-year anniversary. But later this year, we may be getting a divorce,” he writes.
“The decision to divorce is not one we’ve taken lightly. And certainly, it’s not one that many will readily understand. And that’s because it’s not a traditional divorce.”
Mr Jensen goes on to explain the divorce plan, where the pair will continue to live together, have more kids, and refer to each other as husband and wife, but will legally end their marriage because they believe “marriage is not a human invention”.>
http://tinyurl.com/or4ocgj

A much-needed diversion for the Labor Opposition from the tedious subject of 'strugglers'.

"Former Labor leader Mark Latham slams Labor over gay marriage

FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham has slammed his party’s “obsession” with gay marriage saying it should focus on the nation’s “Struggle Streets” instead.

He said the biggest social issue facing Austalia was unemployment, drug use and homelessness in suburbs such as Mt Druitt which was the focus of the SBS documentary, Struggle Street...
“They’re obsessed, instead, by gay marriage.”>
http://tinyurl.com/p6kts6c

Oh boy BUTCH you've opened up another issue in order to propagate a very brisk discussion !

Personally if Gays wish to marry, let them !
If Gays wish to have children, and they're biologically capable, let them !

I can't understand how much more any government can bend, in order to further accommodate their (Gays) particular sexual proclivities !

Next there'll be a move by some very weird people, to legalise sexual relations with animals ? Do I hear any of you good people laugh ? Well, there's always been in existence, long standing legislation with a clear prohibition of such an abominable act, still that hasn't stopped some who choose such a lifestyle ? I could even name a few, but obviously I'm gagged.

Well, that's the Slippery Slope fallacy checked off. Now, if we could just have the Appeal to Nature ...

Obviously my joke one doesn't count.

Rehctub, It's not just about bedroom games, or the barrenness of a particular marriage, or even just inheritances. "Married" people have unique access to each other in hospital, and to decision making in extremis, and even after death. Not every couple has a living will, and many younger couples would not anticipate the need. Duly recognised marriages permit one access to the other unequivocally. This permits medical and post-mortem decisions to be made swiftly that might reflect what the patient and their life partner desired, rather than some blood relative they have not so chosen. Do you want your wife talking to the doctor, or your estranged but pushy sister who disapproves of your wife? Maybe you wouldn't care but many do. It should not be up to medical staff, nor should distinguishing differing "types" of marriage be their problem in a stressful and emotionally charged environment. The simple answer is *one* type of legally recognised marriage, for *whoever* wants it.

I suspect vanishingly few homosexual couples will actually want to be members and be married by a church that explicitly doesn't want them, has traditionally bemoaned their existence. Then again, churches turn a good dollar on the wedding trade to non-members, have very often been subsidised to purchase premises and receive tax-exemptions, so do they serve the general public one-and-all or just their arbitrarily bounded but publicly assisted club?

Rusty.

//You fat elephant seal!//

With a waist of 35 inches and a mass of 65kg? That isn't fat by human standards, let alone elephant seal standards.

By that metric, catwalk models are 'well-covered', Tony Abbbott is 'a big boy', Bill Shorten is 'a bit lardy', Barnaby Joice is 'morbidly obese', Joe Hockey is 'a beached whale' and Clive Palmer is 'titanic'.

Do you have an eating disorder? Because that might explain why you perceive 65kg men as being overweight.

Is Mise,
That's exactly what the Gay radicals did in Denmark but it's a slightly different situation as the main Lutheran denomination is not separate from the state and is bound by it's equal opportunity legislation. So in Denmark a pastor can refuse to carry out a same sex marriage on the basis of a conscientious objection but the church has a responsibility to provide a pastor who will officiate, they can't refuse outright.

What exactly are you trying to say there A J PHILIPS ? That instances of bestiality are fallacious ? Indeed you'd be surprised ? Not every occurrence can be found contained within the dusty covers of a legal almanac ? In fact in my time I cannot recall (ever) a charge being laid citing such a curious violation ? The fact it's rarely formerly recorded, shows those at the coal face know when it's prudent to pause, and then withdraw, rather than rushing in an attempt to record a conviction. The establishment of the 'proofs' alone, is sufficient enough deterrent for the average detective to look elsewhere for a pinch ? '...Obviously your joke one (sic) doesn't count..' probably not ? A cursory peek at a copy of DSM.V under 'deviant sexual behaviour' might enlighten your perspective somewhat A J PHILIPS ?

Peter Singer, Philosopher and a Founder of the Greens in Australia believes that it is OK to have sexual relations with animals, providing always that the animal is not harmed.

One presumes that a normally endowed human male could have a satisfactory and ethical sexual relationship with a sheep but Singer would rule ot doe rabbits or any rabbit for that matter.

A human female would not face the same ethical constraints.

//One presumes that a normally endowed human male could have a satisfactory... sexual relationship with a sheep//

Only if one is from New Zealand.

Best joke ever:

A Kiwi goes on holiday to Australia and takes his favourite sheep with him. He takes it everywhere with him on a lead. One day whilst in an outback pub, a shearer casts an eye over his very woolly sheep and asks 'Hey mate, when you gunna shear that thing?'

The Kiwi looks at him indignantly and says 'I'm not shearing her wuth anybody.'

I have known two outcast men who slept with nanny goats, and a 15 old country girl who allowed her Alsation dog to mount her according to her friends.

They all sought companionship with these animals, should their relationship be discriminated against. This is similar to allowing anal sex between men.

//I have known two outcast men who slept with nanny goats, and a 15 old country girl who allowed her Alsation dog to mount her according to her friends.//

You've got some weird mates, Josephus.

//This is similar to allowing anal sex between men.//

Bestiality is similar to allowing anal sex between consenting men*? Not in the eyes of the law or society, you weird sick bastard. Sex between men has been allowed for a long time and is socially accepted, bestiality is still illegal and generally the butt of jokes. If that saddens all you blokes with a secret desire to study 'animal husbandry' I'm sorry. Have you thought about moving to New Zealand?

* But not between consenting men and women. And there you find the crux of Josephus' argument.

Toni Lavis,
When one works to improve the likes of men living on the fringe of society to be called "you weird sick bastard", indicates the type of attitudes you have toward social workers. I think I'd rather have them as mates seeing them changed from their former life, than the likes of abusers.

//When one works to improve the likes of men living on the fringe of society to be called "you weird sick bastard", indicates the type of attitudes you have toward social workers.//

I like social workers. I don't like two-faced hypocrites who proclaim at one moment to have Christian compassion for all of God's children, and then turn around and selectively deny that compassion to some of God's children on the basis of their sexual orientation. Make up your mind, Josephus: or are we all built in God's image, and worthy of the same treatment and consideration under the law? Or are some more equal than others?

Toni Lavis,
You speak off the top of your head. I have had several gay friends and some who have lived together and some who have succoured to AIDS. Showing compassion is not an issue, which by the way you fail to demonstrate by your abuse.

Relationships are different to biological facts. You cannot accept one can have lifelong relationships and not call it marriage.

You indicate you are frustrated and loosing a logical argument and searching for words of abuse to attack the messenger not debate the facts.

I have a question, it seems to me that the freer standards that we see
these days has led to gays, no I don't like that word, queers will do,
have turned homosexuality into a fashion.
If that had not happened would as many of the current flock of queers
even had thought of being queer ?

I suspect that the numbers would not be anywhere near the numbers we see in demonstrations.
If they want to live like that then go away and call yourselves
something other than married, as that is what I am.

Anyway at one demo on tv I heard someone yell out UNCLEAN UNCLEAN !!

That I think sums it up nicely !

Bazz you can blame channel ten for that as if I'm correct it was they who started to broadcast the gay MG in Sydney. Before then they kept to themselves.

So here we are a few decades later and not only are they publicly proud to be queers, they also want what normal people have and they won't give in until they get their way.

Of cause the problem is simply allowing them to be recognized as married won't be the end of it.

I say we should take a stand and resect our forefathers who fought and paid the ultimate sacrifice for us and simply say, find somewhere else to get married as there are plenty of choices.

During the past few decades we have seen many of our rights eroded and our limp wristed governments have paid too much attention to the squeaky wheel brigade.

Marriage is what it is so get over it because so long as there is man on man there will never be equality in marriage.

While I don't respect queers any less than normal people, when it comes to marriage, just find another word. Problem solved but that's just too easy and, given most if them are drama queens, the easy option is just not colorful enough.

o sung wu,

The Slippery Slope fallacy was the assumption that marrying animals would be next. A vegetarian could similarly argue, "Humans eating animal flesh? What's next? Eating babies?"

There's no reason to believe that marrying animals will be next. It would be a waste of taxpayer dollars given that it would provide no practical or legal benefit to either party, and an animal can't form a contract with a human or provide consent. And as you point out, zoophilia is listed on the DSM-V as a 'deviant sexual behaviour'.

Bazz,

I liked your post. It found it refreshingly honest.

No feigned concerns about children; no disingenuous ponderings about what the government is doing in the "marriage business" anyway; no red herrings regarding the allegedly small percentage of homosexuals who actually care about the issue.

Just straight up ignorance and bigotry from a bloke who can't stand poofs.

rehctub,

No-one owns words and the meaning of the word "marriage" has evolved a lot over time, so it is you who needs to get over it. I could equally argue that you need to find another word. Did you receive your wife in an exchange for oxen? Did you receive your wife in an agreement to form an alliance? Did you mary her to ensure the paternity of your children?

Then find another word, because "marriage" was taken.

AJ Phillips, hasn't marriage been a slippery slope since Adam and Eve?

You know how it went, first marriage was with your clone, then incestually with your brothers, sisters, etc. and then before you know it J. Howard Marshall marries Anna Nicole Smith.

If two or more people of varied sexes want to have sex with each other it is none of my business as long as everybody involved is a freely consenting adult.

If two consenting adult humans of the same or opposite sexes want to commit to each other in legal wedlock I wish them happiness.

However, I object to a human forcing sex on either another human or a non-human. If you want to have sex with a sheep be gentle and engage in adequate foreplay.

Ooaahhh, seems I touched a sore point with AJ Philips,

I think UNCLEAN UNCLEAN does indeed call a spade a bloody shovel !

Toni Lavis,

Good joke that one.

Strangely enough the vowel shift in NZ English is fairly recent.
The Kiwis that I soldiered with in the 1950s spoke much the same as the Australian troops and it was only the uniform that differentiated us, apart from the obvious difference of our Maori mates.

Settle down now A J PHILIPS settle down, BAZZ is merely expressing an opinion, of which he's entitled too, just as you are.

Bazz,

No actually, you didn’t.

<<Ooaahhh, seems I touched a sore point with AJ Philips,>>

There was nothing about my tone or approach that should have suggested that a sore point was touched. Any harshness in my response was proportion to the absurdity and offensiveness of the sentiments expressed in yours. Furthermore, being straight, I have no real personal investment in this debate, so I have the advantage of not getting too emotionally involved in these discussions. Which really shows in my responses. Particularly when compared to the two you’ve posted on this thread.

<<I think UNCLEAN UNCLEAN does indeed call a spade a bloody shovel !>>

I wasn’t even sure what you meant by “UNCLEAN UNCLEAN”, so I didn’t factor it into my response. Apparently it was something really offensive if you think it contributed to a response that you believed you could paint as being indicative of touching a sore point in order to divert from the stupidity of your own comment.

o sung wu,

Nothing I said should suggest that I need to settle down or be reminded of the right of others to express an opinion. The harshness of my response was proportionate to the ignorance displayed in Bazz’s. I suspect you are just building on his last comment.

I post most of what I post with a cheery disposition - a condescending smirk on my face at worst. I’m just disappointed that that never seems to show through in the (sometimes even horrified) responses that I get. At the risk of sounding cocky, I can only put it down to the fact that those who disagree with, or are offended by, what I say are engaging in a bit of transference by interpreting the discomfort that it brings them, and their inability to counter it with reasoned argument, as a being a problem with me.

It would be easier than admitting that one was wrong, after all.

//Relationships are different to biological facts. You cannot accept one can have lifelong relationships and not call it marriage.//

I've had a familial relationship with all of my siblings and both my parents my entire life. I've had a friendly relationship with my best mate for more than half my life. None of these relationships are marriage. Now, what were you saying about facts?

The question is not whether people can have lifelong relationships and not call them the marriage: the question is whether certain people should have the right to call certain types of relationships 'marriages'. I think homosexual couples should have the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples. You have yet to produce a convincing argument as to why they should not.

Mostly you just point out that it takes the fusion of a sperm and an egg for natural sexual reproduction to occur in mammalian species. I agree with you, Josephus: that point is not in contention. I just don't see what it has to with people's right to marry.

Toni Lavis,
1. Please state what you believe marriage to be?
2. Please state why the State should record this that a civil contract does not already give?

Toni,
But same sex marriage and opposite sex marriage are not the same thing so why should they be treated equally, what's wrong with creating a second act defining and recognising same sex marriage?
Liberals and progressives constantly blather on about the benefits of greater diversity in society yet their activism tends toward assimilation, standardisation and homogenisation. When you bake a cake you mix flour, eggs, butter and sugar but once the process is finished none of the ingredients are individually identifiable, they've changed and combined to become something else. To a the majority of Australians who don't share the progressive religious outlook the whole marriage equality push looks like and attempt to change marriage into something different to what it is now by combining it with other, very different lifestyles to change it's meaning and significance. Because there is no valid reason for this push for "equality" to a person outside the progressive religion it all looks like the typical heavy handed, unreasonable/unreasoning actions of a sect of fanatics who have only their own group interests at heart.

Jay, that is so well said.

These minority groups are relentless in their quests and work on the old 'squeaky wheel ' theory.

Just find another word and the problem will be solved forever, it truly is that simple.

It isn't just minority groups, as ex-Labor leader Latham says. Gay marriage is the red herring debate L'il Willie Shorten chooses in lieu of policies, where his cupboard is bare. The Greens Protest Party* is the same. *As decribed by Julia Gillard who should have known from her experience with her treacherous Greens side-kicks.

Latham,
<Former Labor leader Mark Latham slams Labor over gay marriage

FORMER Labor leader Mark Latham has slammed his party’s “obsession” with gay marriage saying it should focus on the nation’s “Struggle Streets” instead.

He said the biggest social issue facing Austalia was unemployment, drug use and homelessness in suburbs such as Mt Druitt which was the focus of the SBS documentary, Struggle Street...
“They’re obsessed, instead, by gay marriage.”>
http://tinyurl.com/p6kts6c

G'day JAY OF MELBOURNE...

I too agree with BUTCH, I think you've hit the proverbial nail on the head ! Interestingly I was referring to a legal interpretation (entirely on another matter altogether) in 'Osborn's Law Dictionary' 7th ed. , where I stumbled across the legal definition of 'Marriage' ?

To wit; '...the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others...' the definition meanders on somewhat speaking of prohibitions, capacity etc. but essentially it remains as we all commonly understand it to be; between a man and a woman.

I'm not sure what all the high-fiving is about. Jay of Melbourne doesn't appear to me to have hit anything much on the head.

<<...same sex marriage and opposite sex marriage are not the same thing so why should they be treated equally...>>

Because there's no reason not to. When talking about equality, the question should never be, "Why should we?", but, "Why shouldn't we?" We don't withhold equal status until we can find a reason to grant it, we grant it until it can be argued why it should be withdrawn/withheld. Laws should be made as if we didn’t know who we were going to come into the world as.

<<...what's wrong with creating a second act defining and recognising same sex marriage?>>

Duplication. Having to amend two Acts instead of one. Unnecessary duplication should be avoided. It's the KISS rule.

<<Liberals and progressives constantly blather on about the benefits of greater diversity in society yet their activism tends toward assimilation, standardisation and homogenisation.>>

Do they? I hadn't heard of those three concepts attached to the argument for marriage equality. I even did a Google search for "marriage equality homogeneity" (http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=marriage+equality+homogeneity) and most results were only returned because "homogeneity" was removed.

I suspect "assimilation, standardisation and homogenisation" were only mentioned to introduce this next little red herring...

<<When you bake a cake you mix flour, eggs, butter and sugar but once the process is finished none of the ingredients are individually identifiable, they've changed and combined to become something else.>>

The definition of "marriage" will be broadened slightly. So what? That hardly presents us with an unbaking-the-cake conundrum.

<<To a the majority of Australians who don't share the progressive religious outlook...>>

The majority? I would like to see the stats on this. All the stats I've seen since 2004 suggest otherwise.

<<Because there is no valid reason for this push for "equality"...>>

Yes, there is. Greater equality is always beneficial for societal health and marginalisation is always detrimental. There are mountains of evidence for this from thousands of studies spanning multiple disciplines, and nothing to contradict them.

Sorry, I don't think I read this quite right...

<<Liberals and progressives constantly blather on about the benefits of greater diversity in society yet their activism tends toward assimilation, standardisation and homogenisation.>>

It appears there was just supposed to be some sort of irony or contradiction there. So the comment was an even less relevant lead-in to a red herring about unbaking-the-cake that I gave it credit for.

Incidentally, rehctub, have you given it any more thought as to what we can call the relationships we have with our wives? Because the word "marriage" was taken.

Whatever it is that we have with our wives, they are not "marriages" in the traditional sense.

//1. Please state what you believe marriage to be?//

A social construct. Whatever the government of the state of which I am a citizen legislates it to be. If I don't like it, I can argue for democratic change. Or move states to a new state that has a government whose policies align more closely with my personal beliefs. Or just ignore what the government says and do my own thing: hey, it works for anarchists.

//2. Please state why the State should record this that a civil contract does not already give?//

They should record civil contracts as well. Census-taking is a no-brainer when it comes to good government; they've been doing it since at least the Domesday Book (published 1086 A.D.).

//what's wrong with creating a second act defining and recognising same sex marriage?//

Because ALL people should be equal under the law. Having one set of laws for straight people and one set of laws for gay people is as reasonable as having one set of laws for wealthy people and one for poor people, or having one set of laws for gingers and one for people who actually have souls. We should all be the same before the law: rich, poor, tall, short, black, white, disabled, able-bodied, insane, sane, etc. Whatever our differences, we are all members of the set of people and there shouldn't be different sets of laws of different sub-sets of people. Set theory in mathematics and logic is a fun diversion on a boring afternoon. Trying to apply it to the law would be horrific.

//When you bake a cake you mix flour, eggs, butter and sugar but once the process is finished none of the ingredients are individually identifiable, they've changed and combined to become something else. To a the majority of Australians who don't share the progressive religious outlook the whole marriage equality push looks like and attempt to change marriage into something different to what it is now by combining it with other, very different lifestyles to change it's meaning and significance.//

Worst analogy ever. You should win some sort of prize for that one, Jay. Especially when you had the more obvious choice of drawing an analogy with fruit salad.

Theoretically with enough energy it is possible to unbake a cake. Practically it is a bloody nightmare because of our old friend the second law of thermodynamics.

The second law of thermodynamics, Jay, was not an Act of Parliament. It cannot be changed by statute, common-law precedent, referendum, revolution, praying, wishful thinking or by anything less than supernatural means.

Unbaking a cake is more likely than making an over-unity engine but I still can't see it happening within my lifetime.

Our gay marriage law looks likely to be an Act of Parliament, rather than a constitutional change. That means they can easily be repealed by a subsequent Act of Parliament. If we find that the gay marriage laws are having the deleterious effect on our society so confidently forecast by some, we can repeal the laws and revert to an earlier paradigm.

You can't just repeal the second law of thermodynamics like that: the second law is 'descriptive law' - it describes how things are - while marriage law is 'prescriptive law' - it describes how things should be. See the difference?

Tony Lavis,
I note you are able to define difference among these people while you are wanting to remove the definition of difference between Homosexual unions and Heterosexual unions. There is a defined difference?

You define difference,"wealthy people and one for poor people,...,rich, poor, tall, short, black, white, disabled, able-bodied, insane, sane." None of these people are equal under the definition you give them, that is according to you what defines their difference. There is no law that defines these definitions differences as the same.

So you argue to want all people to be defined the same, as you argument that there in inequality before the law is spurious as there is no law that makes any individual unequal. There is no law that states everyone must be married so all people are not equal under marriage laws. Marriage is a lifelong commitment covered by a State contract and not a law of enforcement to make all persons equal

Dear Josephus,

We are told in the booklet published by the
Australian Government, "Becoming an Australian
Citizen," the following - under the heading -
"Equality Under The Law." That -

"All Australians are equal under the law.

This means that nobody should be treated differently from
anybody else because of their race, ethnicity,
country of origin, because of their age, sex, marital
status or disability, or because of their political or
religious beliefs. Government agencies and independent
courts must treat everyone fairly."

And denying couples the right to marry if they so choose
just because they happen to be of the same-sex is
treating them differently - and accoridng to the government's
own literature - against the law.

Equality under the law means - Being treated the same.
Currently this is not true for same-sex couples.

Dear Foxy,

Sounds great: "nobody should be treated differently from anybody else because of their disability" - I wish they followed it through and had parliament, government and the public service be comprised of people who are blind, deaf and dumb, thus who could do us no harm!

"because of their age"... Why am I not getting a letter from the Queen for my birthday? why only those who turn 100? Why are two-year-olds not allowed to drive?

"because of marital status"... Why are bachelors not allowed to divorce?

"because of their religious beliefs"... Why is parliament sitting late on Friday afternoons, sometimes even on Saturday? Surely this prevents observant Jews from being elected!

"because of their political beliefs"... Why are Greens not included in the Liberal government?

I have a question for you:

Had a law been legislated stating that you are a camel - would you then become a camel?

Ooo.... ooo.... Can I answer this one?

<<Had a law been legislated stating that you are a camel - would you then become a camel?>>

Too bad. I'm going to anyway.

No, but if being legally recognised as a camel was important and provided certain benefits and a symbolic equality, then being legally recognised as a camel would still be something worth fighting for. But, unlike being a camel, marriage is a social construct. So this analogy of yours, Yuyutsu, is invalid.

It is for reasoning similar to the above that your analogies regarding age and political orientation are just plain stupid and irrelevant. Like most of what you say, really.

All that aside, what you're essentially saying, Yuyutsu, is that gay couples can never actually be "married" (in the eyes of some grander or transcendent realm/being). Is it any wonder that I had you in mind when I discussed, on several occasions, the disingenuity of the marriage privatisation approach to homophobia?

I don't think so.

You need to practice a bit more on your "sagely" advice because, at the moment, you just look like a bigot.

//None of these people are equal under the definition you give them, that is according to you what defines their difference.//

//Whatever our differences, we are all members of the set of people//

All right Josephus, which of the sub-sets of people that I have mentioned do you think doesn't belong to the set of people?

Here's some background reading in case you need to brush up on your set theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory

//So you argue to want all people to be defined the same//

No, I want them all to be defined as members of the set of people. Do you understand the difference?

//There is no law that states everyone must be married//

No of course not. How on earth would you enforce such a law? How on earth is this relevant to anything?

//so all people are not equal under marriage laws.//

Marriage law would only be fair if it made marriage compulsory? You are a true master of the non-sequitur, Josephus.

//Marriage is a lifelong commitment covered by a State contract//

Not always lifelong, but broadly I accept your point.

//not a law of enforcement to make all persons equal.//

Because we can only have marriage equality if we force everyone to marry? No, sorry, your non-sequitur isn't any more convincing the second time around.

Foxy,

"Equality under the law means - Being treated the same.
Currently this is not true for same-sex couples."

That is true and will still be true if the Marriage Act is changed to recognize SSM.

Just as an aside, could posters please consider using either single ' or double " quotation marks when making direct quotations, the use of other marks is a tad confusing.

The latest Fairfax Ipsos poll has community support for Gay Marriage at 68%/25%. The question has virtually been settled. All we need now is for those Abbott type, head in the sand, hold outs in parliament to bow to the wishers of their constituency, and enact the necessary legislation.

Dear Paul1405,

I am for the legality of same-sex marriage. However, if the polls showed that only 10% were for same sex marriage I would still be for it, but in that case I would know there was no chance of having it. It would be for it for the same reasons I am a member of the Greens. I think the Greens advocate what I think is right to a greater degree than the other parties. However, if I were to make my political allegiance on the basis of what the polls show which party most people want I would belong to one of the major parties.

Polls merely show what most people want at a particular time. However, there is not a clear dichotomy. Morality itself eventually is defined by what most people think is right.

QUESTION: Is marriage itself a law or a contract between two persons registered under the State?
Equality applies to everyone no matter their financial, marital, gender or age; the thing that is evident is the defining of diversity of one's public status, [these are not synonymous definitions, same with married or single it is defining difference]. Yet under law all are equal therefore one's status is not the defining of equality ether married or single, ether married or homosexual. Note the person is equal and not to be discriminated against on marital status, gender or age etc. Difference is recognised under the law it is not stating that marriage and single people are the same as it is defining difference.

If marriage itself is a law then it is a responsibility that all who make that commitment to each other be licensed and registered by the State even as all who drive cars on the road need to be licensed and registered. At the moment it is optional as many in de'facto relationships give evidence they do not register, in the case of their children and property they are still covered by custody and property law.

TO CLAIM HOMOSEXUALS ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST by human rights as unequal is spurious as there is the capacity to take out a civil contract similar to a marriage contract. The only reason they want the term "marriage to apply to same sex" is to engage lawyers in taking action against persons of conviction upholding marriage is between a man and a woman. This is demonstrated in States already accepting Homosexual couples as married. There is a defining difference the homosexuals are no willing to accept. They want a genderless society, yet the law sees equality of both male and female and defines that difference. Try putting male athletes in female track events.

Paul,

Opinion polls?
Didn't the ones in Britain before the last election shew that the Tories were going to be slaughtered?
Somehow the opinion polls were so far off that there wasn't a mark on the target.

Someone mentioned KISS, ( keep it simple stupid), well, what could possibly be more simple than having two versions of marriage, one between a man and a woman, and another between two people. This way anyone who gets married can choose. Even men and women who marry can choose two people if they so choose, it's no big deal.

It's called a compromise and the queers don't want compromise they want us to change our ways to accommodate them.

Why should we!

As for Bill Shorton, well there's a laugh if ever I've heard one, bill shorten alright, short on ideas.

We have a looming jobs crisis, a housing bubble, a manufacturing industry about to implode and this is the best this guy can come up with.

God help us is the country chooses to dump Abbott because uncle bills a dud.

Dear Rehctub,

<<the queers don't want compromise they want us to change our ways to accommodate them.>>

Homosexuals, or 'queers' as you unjustly call them, don't want anything - they are not a side to this debate and are not to be blamed. It's unrelated others, i.e. the anti-religious brigade, who incidentally use them to further their own interests, pretending to represent homosexuals without even having asked for their permission.

Shorten is short on ideas. That is not as bad as having the ideas of Tony Abbott. Since Abbott refuses to deny or confirm that he is paying off people smugglers it is reasonable to assume that is what he is doing. The problem is that Tony Abbott has proven to be so incompetent that no other Lib wants to take his place and live with the fallout from his policies.

Yuyutsu,

They're some pretty broad generalisations there. Most of the gays I know are very interested in this topic and none of them seem to care at all about religion. There's only one I can think of doesn't care about either issue.

I'm reluctant to reveal that because we all seem to know some mysterious gays that agree with our positions. Just like all my Liberal friends who only vote Labor.

David, you are forgetting the most important fact about the illegals, that being it is a labor stuff up, of monumental proportions that the libs are simply trying to fix and, as a tax payer myself, I woukd willingly pay the smugglers off rather than have to deal with the finical burden these freeloaders impose on us and the continual whining from the likes of that greens twit Hansen young.

In fact, my way of dealing with labors bombshell woukd be far more brutal so they can thank their lucky stars someone like myself is not in charge.

My grandfather didn't fight in two wars and nor did my own late father work his whole life to secure our futures just so these freeloaders, mostly Muslims at that can enjoy the spoils of what our forefathers fought for.

If anyone really cares about the freeloaders, may I suggest you channel your efforts towards encouraging and educating them that uncontrolled breeding of offspring, when there is no future for them is the catalyst of the issue.

Furthermore, a true refugee is not one who chooses where to find refuge, it's one who takes the first safe haven available. Crossing several countries to come here is not about finding refuge, it's about taking advantage of our limp dick approach towards protecting what our forefathers fought to provide.

Dear rehctub,

You wrote: "David, you are forgetting the most important fact about the illegals"

One way of arguing is to cite one's opinion as fact. That is what you have done. Another way of arguing is false labeling. The people who come on boats have done nothing illegal. If you want to argue with me please keep your comments factual and don't confuse your opinions with fact.

Yuyutsu, "Homosexuals, or 'queers' as you unjustly call them, don't want anything - they are not a side to this debate and are not to be blamed. It's unrelated others, i.e. the anti-religious brigade, who incidentally use them to further their own interests, pretending to represent homosexuals without even having asked for their permission"

You are onto something there. Certain political interests are using 'gay marriage' as one of their blunt weapons to belt society, not just government, as part of their campaign to disrupt the traditional values and institutions they see as the bulwarks of western culture and democracy. Their aim is to install by default the political system that they want - international socialism.

OnTheBeach,
Your efforts to tie the anti-religious brigade to international socialism is as pathetic as it is illogical.

Ponde,

It might well be illogical but why is it so?

So tell me David, what's legal about que jumping?

I was of the opinion we as a nation have procedural processes that need to be followed to immigrate here.

Is that fact or fiction?

I say what they are doing by trying to enter via the back door is illegal, if not, what would you call it? Unlawful perhaps!

It's a pretty weak argument if you do.

Dear rehctub,

In order to understand why some people buy into
the myths being spread about asylum seekers for
political use and advantage - perhaps we need
to look at the past in order to understand the
attitudes of some people today:

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/11/02/3624658.htm

Dear rehctub,

If one has committed an illegal act charges can be brought and after a trial the person charged can be found guilty. To be the best of my knowledge none of the asylum seekers have been found guilty of anything in an Australian court. Australia has a right to control its borders. However, there is also a right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to cross international borders in search of refuge. To call people illegal who have not been found guilty of any crime violates the presumption of innocence under English common law. The right to seek refuge does not obligate the asylum seeker to stand in any queue.

The US has millions of undocumented aliens within its borders. Some of them have been sent back. However, no one has been interned unless they have been found guilty of a crime other than entering the country undocumented.

The asylum seekers are a source of scare tactics by both Labor and the Libs. By calling them illegal when they have not been found guilty in an Australian court you are participating in the Labor/Lib scare tactic.

//Their aim is to install by default the political system that they want - international socialism.//

I think gay marriage should be legalised. I think that adopting socialism is complete lunacy when there are so many toppled statues in the former U.S.S.R. to attest to the fact that it DOES NOT WORK. Replacing capitalism with socialism would be dangerous idiocy. Allowing gay people to get married seems entirely harmless.

Maybe you are right and as soon as Parliament passes the bill legalising gay marriage all the evil Reds will crawl out from under the beds and wage a bloody revolution against us capitalist dogs. It seems rather unlikely though.

Labor isn't about socialism? Say what?

Is there a Labor leader, including the present one Shorten, who hasn't ridden the socialist wagon, talking up international socialism and setting it as the pinnacle to which Labor should aspire?

Although around a year ago the ever-ambitious Shorten showed his political pragmatism, cynicism too, by declaring that Labor should be more covert about supporting socialism.

While there is some truth in saying, if any are, that the career politicians like Shorten might be supporting socialism for their own short-term benefit, the idealism and political priorities are no different. Shorten plays the Class War card as Julia Gillard did and the dupes follow. If individually they might be millionaires and enjoy the good life that might add deceit and hypocrisy to their CVs.

Shorten is wasting the Parliament's time on SSM as a necessary tactic to stave off an attack from Plibersek and as wedge politics to embarrass Abbott. At the same time the institution of marriage is not well regarded by the leftists (feminists too) who would prefer to trash what they insultingly refer to as 'traditional' marriage.

Regarding the Christian religion, the old lefties would never have been intolerant towards religion. Not that they believed in religion, perish the thought. However, the religious intolerance seen in the modern leftists is not what they would have wanted either. Except where the totalitarian creeds are concerned eg., Islam, which the feckless modern leftists support. Figure that.

onthebeach: "Regarding the Christian religion, the old lefties would never have been intolerant towards religion."

Marx is an old lefty.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/ contains his "On the Jewish Question"

From it:

"Selling [verausserung] is the practical aspect of alienation [Entausserung]. Just as man, as long as he is in the grip of religion, is able to objectify his essential nature only by turning it into something alien, something fantastic, so under the domination of egoistic need he can be active practically, and produce objects in practice, only by putting his products, and his activity, under the domination of an alien being, and bestowing the significance of an alien entity – money – on them.

In its perfected practice, Christian egoism of heavenly bliss is necessarily transformed into the corporal egoism of the Jew, heavenly need is turned into world need, subjectivism into self-interest. We explain the tenacity of the Jew not by his religion, but, on the contrary, by the human basis of his religion – practical need, egoism.

Since in civil society the real nature of the Jew has been universally realized and secularized, civil society could not convince the Jew of the unreality of his religious nature, which is indeed only the ideal aspect of practical need. Consequently, not only in the Pentateuch and the Talmud, but in present-day society we find the nature of the modern Jew, and not as an abstract nature but as one that is in the highest degree empirical, not merely as a narrowness of the Jew, but as the Jewish narrowness of society.

Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism – huckstering and its preconditions – the Jew will have become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and because the conflict between man’s individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished.

The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism."

Marx was extremely intolerant of Judaism and Christianity. Marx promoting the Jew-hating stereotype of the Jew controlling society sounds like a Nazi.

david f,

It's not so much crossing our border that defines the genuineness of refugees but the number of borders that they have crossed to get here, or the number of countries that they have passed on the way to our border.
Economic migrants is a better description than refugees.

david f, "Marx is an old lefty"

You may find that the old lefties in Australia that I referred to might not always equate Marxism with their socialism.

//Labor isn't about socialism? Say what?//

So what about all those Liberal politicians that have expressed support for same sex marriage? Are they socialists too?

Marriage is itself discriminatory as it excludes marriage of brother / sister siblings or mother / father parents. WHY? They love each other and are committed to each other for life as the proposed definition expresses. The definition proposed is fraught with legal complications, as it does not define the state of marriage. Which is an exclusive relationship between a man and woman. In the new World the definition does away with guilt from adultery, incest, and homosexual acts

//Marriage is itself discriminatory as it excludes marriage of brother / sister siblings or mother / father parents. WHY? They love each other and are committed to each other for life//

Josephus, is your last name Lannister or Targaryen by any chance?

//In the new World the definition does away with guilt from adultery, incest, and homosexual acts//

Guilt, in the legal sense, only applies to incest: adultery and homosexual acts aren't criminal. Nobody is proposing any changes to incest laws. You are tilting at windmills.

Guilt, in the sense of the emotion arising from acts that trouble one's personal conscience, can never be governed by legislation. It is impossible to legislate what a man feels or believes, merely what he says and does.

Josephus wrote: "In the new World the definition does away with guilt from adultery, incest, and homosexual acts"

Adultery is harmful to the marital relationship. Incest is harmful to the familial relationship. Homosexual acts between consenting adults hurt no one. There is no reason for guilt. Why not accept that actions between consenting adults which no one should not produce guilt.

There is no reason we should keep guilt for homosexual acts. The Bible forbids eating pork. People who are neither Muslim nor Jewish feel no guilt for eating pork. It makes no more sense to keep guilt for homosexual acts than to keep guilt for eating pork.

Homosexuals suppress guilt of the unnatural that is why they identify themselves as different, and seek to be accepted, as no one today denies then practising their homosexual acts.

Toni Lavis,

The incest laws need changing because in some cases they are ridiculous, particularly where they affect consenting adults.

//Josephus, is your last name Lannister or Targaryen by any chance?//

//Homosexuals suppress guilt of the unnatural that is why they identify themselves as different, and seek to be accepted//

No, apparently it is Freud.

May I enquire how much training you've had in psychoanalysis?

Josephus wrote: "Homosexuals suppress guilt of the unnatural that is why they identify themselves as different, and seek to be accepted, as no one today denies then practising their homosexual acts."

Dear Josephus,

To a homosexual it is unnatural to be a heterosexual. To a homosexual it is natural to be a homosexual. Why should they feel guilt? Why are you so upset at homosexuals? What is your problem?

david f,
Homosexual acts are a denial of one's biological sexuality and the fact they are deliberately pumping fertile sperm into someone else' excreta is degrading to the reality of the design role of one's sexuality. It is not the role of marriage and never will be, not until babies are born from the anus.

Dear Josephus,

Now you've lost me.

Sex and how we practice it - is a private matter to
say the least. And people practice it in different ways.
No everybody practices sex the same way - and your making
statements rooted (pardon the pun) in generalisations -
ignores the differences among individuals - be they
homosexual or heterosexual. They don't all share the same
supposed traits.

Once again you bring procreation into the question of
marriage. You are simply giving your own personal belief -
and that's fine but for many people - homosexual and heterosexual
marriage does not necessarily equate with having children.
You tend to be thinking in terms of general categories.
However what you need to do is check against reality - which
you will find contradicts the rigid image that you are
presenting.

//the fact they are deliberately pumping fertile sperm into someone else' excreta is degrading to the reality of the design role//

Such colourful and florid prose, when the term 'anal sex' would suffice just as well. One might almost be inclined to think that you had some sort of fascination with the subject, Josephus.

There's a good chance they're just pumping fertile sperm into a condom anyway. Presumably you think this is somehow fulfilling 'the reality of their design role' when the condom is worn during heterosexual but not homosexual intercourse. I've yet to hear of babies being born from condoms either, but you seem to work from unique biology textbook which I suspect could only actually be found in the Unseen University Library.

You're also always very careful to stress that it is only homosexual acts which are at odds with sexual reproduction. Presumably you think it is fulfilling 'the reality of their design role' when males are pumping fertile sperm into female excreta or cava oris. Or just spilling it on the ground like our old friend Onan. You do know that the female alimentary canal is not linked to the ovaries don't you? What is the title of your weird biology textbook and who wrote it?

I know I've raised this last question before but you didn't really give me a straight answer and I doubt you will this time: exactly who designed us? Xenu? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Greys? Allah?

Homosexuality is not a denial at all. It would be a denial if somebody with predominantly homosexual tendencies were to marry someone of the opposite sex. This has happened in the past due to family pressure or to hide homosexuality. Now they can be honest about their sexual tendencies and not be penalised by prison or other punishment for their natural leanings. I still don't know why it bothers you that a group of people who had to hide their nature are now free to express it. Why are you trying to put your feelings on them? Why are you so bothered by it? Your concern about homosexuals seems unnatural and excessive to me.

David,
You ask,"Why are you so bothered by it? Your concern about homosexuals seems unnatural and excessive to me.'

What is unnatural is the destruction tears and hurt caused by children I see of my friends.

1. Young man youngest of a family of three boys, dux of the school in yr12 passionately pursued by young woman in his class, at 20 severed relationship with the family to live with homosexual peers. It destroyed his mother she died of a heart attack at 56.

2. Close friends of our family adopted a baby, nurtured educated and supported him into his early 20's again moves 300 kilometres away, mixes with homosexual and lesbian peers at 39 contracts AIDS and hepatitis. His late 70's parents move to live and nurse him in the last six months of his life, died at 42. They are broken hearted and childless and all their hopes of being grandparents dashed to the grave.

I could tell you of other friends children turned to a homosexual life buried in their 40's. I have seen the pain of these families, left childless, and without offspring.

3. Recently the eldest daughter now 18 of three sibling brothers, from a highly respected family in the community decided to leave home and live with her lesbian girlfriend from school, now with pierced nose and tongue and tats. She being the only daughter has destroyed her relationship with her mother who expected company from her in these adult growing years; has left her mother devastated

Tell me what is natural, and I'll tell you who is left in heartache and tears. That is why I am passionate because I see and know the reality.

Dear Josephus,

Thank you for your answer. It shows that you are a caring person. You wrote that you are passionate because you see and know the reality.

You wrote: “I could tell you of other friends children turned to a homosexual life buried in their 40's. I have seen the pain of these families, left childless, and without offspring.”

That tells me we don’t agree on what is reality. I don’t think people are turned on to a homosexual life any more than people are turned on to a heterosexual life. I think some people are predominantly homosexual. They don’t get turned on to that life. They are attracted sexually more to the people of the same sex than they are attracted to people of the opposite sex.

I had a cousin who I exchanged letters with. He stopped writing, and I accepted that he was not interested in keeping up the correspondence. A couple of years later his mother called me from California to tell me he was dead. He was a young man, and I asked what he had died from. His father got on the phone and told me he suffered horribly before he died. Apparently he died of AIDs contracted through homosexual contacts. Before he died his uncle, a very religious man, would not let him in his uncle’s house and would have nothing to do with. His father and mother reacted differently.

After my cousin’s death I visited his parents. Their garage was full of bags of food for AIDS sufferers too weak to shop or do much. The food items are easy to prepare so the recipients don't have to do much to them. It is heart rending as they become friendly with those they visit and then feel the loss when they die. His mother also volunteers as a counselor for an agency that arranges accommodations for older people. She gave as examples a man who is very athletic and runs several miles but cannot find his way home afterwards and another man with an alert mind who is handicapped physically.

continued

continued

She knows about the different places in the LA area and can direct them to the best for their needs. She also volunteers help to children with learning difficulties. Some of them are children with adequate intellectual capacity but without an adult who pays any attention to them. Her brother, the uncle who would have nothing to do with the AIDs sufferer looks down on his sister and brother-in-law because they are not as religiously observant as he is.

The uncle is religiously observant but lacks compassion.

We agree that the homosexual life style can be horrible. A big reason that it is horrible is that their family and others may reject their offspring and make them feel like outcasts. Don’t blame a homosexual for being homosexual. Accept it.

In case 1 you mentioned a mother who died of a heart attack after her son lived with other homosexuals. If she could have brought herself to accept that her son was a homosexual and he was happier living with his peers she might have made friends with those peers and continued her life.

Case 2 sounds a bit like my cousin. Sexually transmitted diseases whether contracted through homosexual or heterosexual contacts are bad and I think it more reasonable to promote safe sex regardless of the type of contact. As far as wishing for more descendents whether or not your descendents choose to produce young should be up to them. In an overcrowded world it isn’t a bad thing not to produce young.

In case 3 you wrote the girl destroyed her relationship with her mother. In that case the mother might have shared the fault for not accepting her daughter’s proclivities.

All three cases demonstrate a lack of acceptance of the parents for the nature of their offspring.

If one accepts that most if not all homosexuals are naturally that way one can try to make their lifestyle better than it is.

One way to make homosexual lifestyles better is to discourage their unhealthy promiscuity. Same sex marriage can do that.

"One way to make homosexual lifestyles better is to discourage their unhealthy promiscuity. Same sex marriage can do that."

How can SSM discourage their unhealthy promiscuity?

Isn't it more likely that they would continue to do what they do anyhow? They will define marriage to suit their lifestyles and 'love' choices, wouldn't you imagine? The risk-taking would continue, as would for instance, the 'bare-backing' that conservative homosexuals abhor. Stupid is stupid and stupid is common, particularly affecting the selfish and soft-sighted risk-takers, bi-sexuals too.

Dear onthebeach,

If the alternative doesn't exist one cannot predict what people will do if they had the alternative.

Heterosexualism would not disappear if people could not unite in heterosexual marriage. However the heterosexual life style would change.

If people can form recognised lasting bonds either heterosexual or homosexual it is reasonable to assume some will do that, and others won't.

Stupidity is neither a homosexual nor heterosexual characteristic.

Same-sex marriage will give homosexuals the opportunity to make marital commitments. Why not give them the opportunity?

David F,
I think we need to understand that the Marriage Equality and LGBTIQ movements are recent inventions of what have come to be known as "Social Justice Warriors", they may intersect with the traditional Gay movement but they are not of the traditional Gay movement.
It's this forced intersectionality which is causing the confusion, Gay rights has always pursued a separatist agenda and what it explicitly described as homosexual Communism and in the last 50 years or so they've been remarkably successful in building their own communities.
It's therefore wrong to sheet home all the blame for the Marriage Equality nonsense to the Gay movement or the Gay community at large (even though a minority of Gays do support it) when the fault lies with it's inventors the so called "social justice" advocates.
The people promoting Marriage Equality and the LGBTIQ foolishness are doing so for their own reasons which have been examined in detail elsewhere, they don't represent homosexuals nor do they have the interests of the mainstream at heart.
OTB is right in that on one level Gays are still going to be Gays and pursue their traditional lifestyles due to the fact that legalising same sex marriage does not affect them in any way, however social justice activism has a well documented history of producing negative outcomes for the people it professes to champion.
What is notable though is that "Social Justice" activism can only thrive where there is tension and friction and social justice warriors, like all fanatics constantly need a war to fight. This bodes not well for Gays in the long term as SJW's will manufacture tension between homosexuals and other groups in society with the inevitable backlash against the marginal group.

David, it's illegal to drive at 110 in a 100 zone, it's also illegal to accept a lesser price knowing you are not paying the GST.

Just because people don't get caught and punished does not mean these offenses are not illegal.

Il stick to my assumption that they people are arriving illegally thanks.

Dear rehctub,

You may make any assumption you like. Exactly which law are they violating? What statute book is it found in? It just seems to me you are calling them illegal unjustly. Cite the law you think they are breaking.

//David, it's illegal to drive at 110 in a 100 zone, it's also illegal to accept a lesser price knowing you are not paying the GST.//

But it's not illegal to claim asylum in Australia. They haven't changed that rule yet... give them time.

//Just because people don't get caught and punished does not mean these offenses are not illegal.//

What offences? Which part of 'it is not illegal to claim asylum in Australia' do you not understand?

How easy do you think it is to avoid capture when your front up to the Man and say 'Hello Sir, I would like to claim asylum'? People are going to be 'caught' the moment they claim asylum. Whether or not they are convicted depends on whether they have a legitimate claim to asylum - in which case they are granted refugee status - or whether they do not - in which case they are deemed illegal aliens and dealt with accordingly.

Dear Toni Lavis,

It is no crime to claim asylum. If the claim for asylum is denied they still have committed no crime. 'Illegal alien' implied they have committed a crime. Deportation is not a legal punishment but an action denying a claim. If a person brings a law suit and loses it they have done nothing illegal. They have made a claim, and it has been denied.

I would estimate there are more men in Australia sleeping with more than one woman on any given week. The next push will be to legalise polygamy, as we have over 500,000 Muslims in Australia who would support it.

The age of consent would be lowered to pubity for girls. There are agendas behind all social activist, even the writers of "Home and away" has teenagers sleeping together in casual affairs which will change the attitude of society to accept promiscuity as normal.

Hence the emotional and cheating deception it heaps on relationships.

Last night, Thursday, 18 June 2015 on
Q&A Special: Between a Frock and a Hard Place it was claimed by one of the panel that full equality was the goal and marriage of same sex couples in all churches was the necessary for this goal.
None of the SS advocates disagreed; the can has many worms.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/past-programs-by-date.htm

The same criticism as made by ex-Labor Latham regarding Labor can be made of the Taxpayer-funded broadcaster.

There are some very serious domestic issues affecting the community but the ABC and the Labor Party very much prefer to talk about homosexual marriage. The Greens have wasted the Parliament's time over and over again with gay activists' 'issues' that are few homosexuals probably agree with anyhow.

Here is the problem that is requiring distraction of the gay marriage can of worms,

<Bill Shorten causes Labor dismay over lack of ideas

BILL Shorten’s critics inside the Labor Party are growing. You don’t have to go far to find detractors in the party organisation, the unions or among the membership, including Labor elders, or to hear complaints about policy, strategy, communications or the slow pace of party reform.

Even some of Shorten’s biggest supporters concede they are disappointed.

There is also growing friction between Shorten and some Labor MPs. For months, the party leadership has been discussing the timing and sequencing of policy announcements. Shorten is cautious about rolling out policy now. Others argue that releasing policy would help redefine Labor as a party of ideas that is also willing to work with the government in some areas.
..
“What does Bill Shorten actually believe in?” asked ABC radio presenter Jon Faine last week. “What I fundamentally believe, and I think it was Martin Luther King who said this best, but (it was) I think true then and it’s true now: ‘Everybody is somebody’,” Shorten said. The interview was a train wreck. Shorten was asked the most fundamental question for any politician — what do they believe in — and he flubbed it..>
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/bill-shorten-causes-labor-dismay-over-lack-of-ideas/story-fnbcok0h-1227272018488

What about 'Struggle Street', drugs, youth and aged unemployment and those very serious, concerning matters that are continually being put on the back burner? What about Growthism and sustainability?

Fix things that matter, at home.

I am afraid the worm in the can is called Christianity..

Platt,
So Chabad Lubavitch Rabbis and Mohammedan Imams aren't "worms in the can"? Yeah let's see the Marriage Equality proponents try to impose their will on that lot LOL.
The whole Social Justice movement of which marriage equality and LGBTIQ rights are a part is nothing more than a Christian heresy anyway and if history teaches us anything it's that destructive, dangerous movements like this can only be put down with massive amounts of violence.
Social Justice is not too distant in outlook from Catharism when you really look at it closely.

platt,Is ignorant of the previous debate and its real social consequences. He wants a law to enforce his radical socialist view on the conscience and traditional values of society.

//The whole Social Justice movement of which marriage equality and LGBTIQ rights are a part is nothing more than a Christian heresy//

heresy: 1. opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system.
2. the maintaining of such an opinion or doctrine.
3. Roman Catholic Church. the willful and persistent rejection of any article of faith by a baptized member of the church.

Social justice is not heretical within the Roman Catholic church. Popes Pius XI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have issued encyclicals advocating social justice. I haven't looked at Pope Francis' new encyclical but I suspect it probably supports it as well. Social justice is a fundamental cornerstone of contemporary Catholic doctrine.

I wouldn't exactly describe the Roman Catholic church as a heretical sect of Christianity. If anything, it is the Christian churches which reject Catholic teachings on social justice that are guilty of heresy.

//Social Justice is not too distant in outlook from Catharism when you really look at it closely.//

From wikipedia:

// The idea of two Gods or principles, one being good and the other evil, was central to Cathar beliefs. The good God was the God of the New Testament and the creator of the spiritual realm, as opposed to the evil God, whom many Cathars and, particularly, their persecutors identified as Satan, creator of the physical world of the Old Testament. All visible matter, including the human body, was created by this evil god; it was therefore tainted with sin. This was the antithesis to the monotheistic Catholic Church, whose fundamental principle was that there was only one God who created all things visible and invisible. Cathars thought human spirits were the genderless spirits of angels trapped within the physical creation of the evil god, cursed to be reincarnated until the Cathar faithful achieved salvation through a ritual called the consolamentum.//

Yeah, I can really see the resemblance between social justice and all that supernatural mumbo-jumbo (sarcasm).

//He wants a law to enforce his radical socialist view on the conscience and traditional values of society.//

What evidence do you have to support your view that platt is a 'radical socialist'?

...Same-sex marriage will give homosexuals the opportunity to make marital commitments. Why not give them the opportunity?

David, the opportunity is not the real issue here, it's the equality they seek and, so long as a same sex couple CAN NEVER have children together, naturally, then their union can never be the same as a normal couple.

However, while I'm against gay marriage myself, if they want to marry, as I've said time and time again, just add to the act to allow for same sex couples, while retaining the words 'between a man and a woman'. I just don't get why SSC don't get this, but of cause it's equality they seek and that's one quest where they will never achieve their goal, but that won't stop them from trying.

Being allowed the right to marry is only the first step, as acceptance is a whole different ball game and this is why I say "are we opening a can of worms" if we allow them to change the act to suit their extremely small minority because although they are a minority group they shaw will make a lot of noise if and when they get their way.

//so long as a same sex couple CAN NEVER have children together, naturally, then their union can never be the same as a normal couple.//

I take it your definition of a 'normal couple' is one involving heterosexuals that can have children together naturally. Where does this leave all the heterosexual couples who CAN NEVER have children together naturally? Do we have add a special clause to the marriage act for them as well? All these added clauses are certainly going to keep the lawyers happy, but do we really need to feed the sharks when one small change to the marriage act would achieve the same ends?

"...It's the equality they seek and, so long as a same sex couple CAN NEVER have children together, naturally, then their union can never be the same as a normal couple."

Whilst I am gay, and have no intention of seeking to be married [though I am open to future possibilities], I promise you rehctub that I would NEVER regard any marriage of mine to be as, or in, common as that of Geoffrey Edelston and Gabi Grecko's.

By the way, I have no ill will towards their child and wish it the best despite its circumstances.

rehctub,

<<...the opportunity is not the real issue here, it's the equality they seek and, so long as a same sex couple CAN NEVER have children together, naturally, then their union can never be the same as a normal couple.>>

And black people can never be white, but that doesn't mean they're not entitled to equality. You don't seem to understand the difference between sameness and equality in the eyes of the law.

Rehctub "<...the opportunity is not the real issue here, it's the equality they seek and, so long as a same sex couple CAN NEVER have children together, naturally, then their union can never be the same as a normal couple.>>"

Is that right Rehctub?
So infertile or elderly married couples aren't 'a normal couple' because they can't make children 'naturally'?

AJ Phillips,
See that's the bind the no campaign finds itself locked into, they'll continue to look gutless and ineffectual until they abandon Liberal values and admit that, no actually not everyone should be entitled to the same treatment by the state. The yes campaign know this and they're not bound by the same psychological or intellectual need to show tolerance or to appear reasonable and rational at all times, they can get away with boycotts, hysterical ranting and emotional outbursts whereas the No campaign have to maintain these bogus Liberal standards.
The No campaign, such as it is either need to bite the bullet and abandon Liberal values, fairness and propriety and stop fighting with one hand tied behind their back or learn to live with the conseqeunces of their failure to resist. There's no moral high ground to be taken here, it's a grubby issue fought by grubby people who won't listen to reason and only exploit the concept of equality when it suits them.

Jay of Melbourne,

What exactly do you mean when you say "... not everyone should be entitled to the same treatment by the state."?

Obviously convicted criminals shouldn't be treated the same as law abiding citizens. But somehow I don't think that's what you meant.

Yes ok, you've got me there, might I say that the only possibility of a child being born natually is between a man and a woman and, if the man and woman can't have children then that has to be an exception. Also for anyone to even suggest a gay relationship is normal is dilutional. It's not normal which ever way you look at it.

The other issue with gay marriage is divorce as many would choose not to have children, for various reasons so I can only assume it would be much easier to just walk away where there are no kids involved.

I'm afraid there is much more at stake here than simply amending the act to accommodate these people.

AJ Phillips,
I meant that the No campaigners have nothing to lose by adopting an openly illiberal or anti liberal position on this issue because the Yes campaign don't accept that all viewpoints, lifestyles and ideologies are equal and are vocal in expressing such views. The No campaigners aren't on the same field of play as the Yes campaigners that's why they are losing, if they adopted a harder line and demanded something along the lines of Putin's anti homosexual propaganda laws and bans on public LQBTIQ activism they'd at least have a viable, alternative platform.
The fact is that society has been altered already to a point where personal dysfunction and sexual misconduct are glorified and celebrated, nothing will change one way or another if the vote for marriage equality is blocked, society just remains the same as it is now. If "conservatives" were serious they'd be advocating widespread reforms and restrictions on the promotion of sexual eccentricity and mental illness as acceptable and equal to the globally accepted norm of families of one man, one woman and their children as the basis of a healthy society.

Jay of Melbourne wants us to adopt what Putin has done in Russia re his gay 'solution'.
Really? Putin is such a role-model dictator....

Then he goes on to talk about mental illness?
Do you mean all gays must have a mental illness because they weren't born the same as you?
Lol!

Maybe you would feel more comfortable living in Russia JoM?

//might I say that the only possibility of a child being born natually is between a man and a woman//

Nope, that's offensive to Christians. And we all know that not upsetting religious conservatives the most important goal of any society.

//It's not normal which ever way you look at it.//

normal: Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

What is unusual, atypical or unexpected about gay relationships? The only way you can conclude that gay relationships are abnormal is that if they don't conform to some arbitrary standard like 'a relationship must be heterosexual to be considered normal'. This sounds like question-begging to me. Arguments that beg the question are not persuasive.

//I'm afraid there is much more at stake here than simply amending the act to accommodate these people.//

Such as?

//The fact is that society has been altered already to a point where personal dysfunction and sexual misconduct are glorified and celebrated//

What is 'sexual misconduct', Jay? I know what sexual offences are - they're covered in the Crimes Act - but what about 'sexual misconduct'? Is it just sexual acts that you wouldn't want to engage in, Jay?

It would seem that man and woman has been the desired and accepted form of marriage since the beginning of recorded history; why should we now change?

Jay of Melbourne, "The fact is that society has been altered already to a point where personal dysfunction and sexual misconduct are glorified and celebrated.."

Personally speaking, I would leave the majority of responsible homosexuals and responsible heterosexuals out of it, however you are right and it is of deep concern to health and welfare for obvious reasons.

I have challenged one poster (Suseonline) in a previous thread for seeming to normalise and promote anal sex for heterosexuals. Heterosexual anal sex is something she comments on rather often. Suseonline has posted many times the very foolish and risky advice that if a body orifice exists then it is fine, OK, for a penis to penetrate (and any other object, Suseonline?).

That would NOT be the recommendation of Community Health in her State, one would hope. I have drawn Suseonline's attention as a claimed community nurse (and that of others here) to the often reported pressure being placed on girls to service males in ways seen in movies and spruiked as somehow normal, everyday and even mundane(?!) on The Box in chat shows and forums.

Very, very few young women and adolescent girls would request and enjoy anal sex. It is risky for them for a number of reasons, not the least being that the person proposing it is a risk taker and possibly bisexual to boot, introducing other risks. However there are always those who are promoting and seeking to normalise this and other uncomfortable and risky sex practices.

Health authorities find themselves in the awkward situation that politicians are very sensitive to any embarrassment in the media from activists and lobbyists - who may be small in numbers, with secondary agendas and unrepresentative of public opinion - but are skillful media manipulators (and there is a growth of irresponsible, unprincipled, sensationalist, tabloid media).

tbc.

contd.

Regardless of straight or queer preference, there has always been a proportion who engage in sexual practices that no ethical medically trained person could do else but recommend against.

Health Ministers should have the guts and statesmanship to direct and support public health and education authorities in ensuring that students and youth are advised of sexual practices that are risky, should be avoided and where the best advice is to say 'NO' and 'No means NO'.

It would be very regrettable indeed if 'progressive' political correctness is forcing educators to restrict their advice to, 'Just make sure he wears a condom', where they should rightly be advising girls that where their health and future children are concerned, the only reasonable response in some cases because of the fearful consequences (of the inherent risks) can only be a firm 'NO', and do not be browbeaten into complying.

Fear of offending sensibilities should NOT result in girls NOT being supported in saying a firm 'NO' to a partner proposing sex they are not completely and advisedly happy with.

Further, there should be a formal requirement for males to declare any prior same sex experience when obtaining consent. The risks to women, especially young fertile women, are far too high and over-rule any sensitivity issues of the male concerned.

Jay of Melbourne,

Toni Lavis’s questions echo my next ones. So I’d be interested to see what you have to say in response to those.

But I don’t think you’ve really answered my question. I can only take your response to mean that you think homosexuality is an abnormality due to mental illness (there’s no evidence for that at all, by the way, and a lot to suggest that it’s not) and so gay people should be treated differently to others (presumably by not letting them marry).

I know where you’re coming from. I used to think exactly the same way when I was a Christian (although same-sex marriage wasn’t a hot topic back then). But when the Bible was no longer evidence for that belief, nor a reason to ignore any actual evidence, I was forced to change my mind. I’m not sure what your excuse is as an atheist, though.

Is Mise,

If you have to ask that question, then you haven’t been following the OLO discussions on this topic very closely.

Suse, Toni,
I was speaking in the third person, read the posts again.
Basically the No campaign need to go hard or go home, so to speak, if they're not willing to call for the destruction of the LQBTIQ movement and work to those ends then they need to step aside and just deal with the changes to the marriage act because their opposition won't play nice and actually do want to destroy all that the "right" profess to hold dear.
From a realistic perspective the lower element of popular culture is already so morally rotten that a few hundred homosexuals pretending to be married isn't going to make things measurably worse.
The "Left" still have their vision intact, they still promote the "new man", the pan-sexual,pan-racial, pan-religious archetype, what's lacking on the right is a competing vision with which to sell their ideas, critique of the Left's manifold and obvious flaws can only take them so far.

AJ,

I've followed all of the current discussion and I haven't yet seen the question answered; I can see no reason why the Marriage Act should be changed so that marriage is no longer defined as it has been for thousands of years.

Is Mise,

I specifically referred to all the discussions on OLO on this topic. Either way, an answer I provided to a different point raised earlier in this thread should have also answered your question: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6879#209775. My first two reasons in response to Banjo, regarding a different point, at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17425#307999 are also relevant to your question.

When discussing equality, the question shouldn't be, "Why?", but "Why not?" Human history is a litany of examples of why equality should be the default until there is a reason to withhold/withdraw it, rather than the other way round. "That's just the way it's always been" isn't a reason for maintaining an inequality in society.

AJ Phillips,
There's no injustice here and no inequality, the Yes campaign are calling for something completely new to be invented, homosexuals have exactly the same civil rights as all other adult members of society.
The real mindset of the Yes campaigners was revealed in New Zealand last year when in a publicity stunt a radio station offered a substantial cash prize to two heterosexual men if they'd get married. The Gay rights advocates predictably hit the roof and screeched words to the effect that two heterosexual men marrying was an affront to homosexuals and demeaned the institution of marriage....sound like anything you've heard before?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/same-sex-marriage-stunt_n_5811310.html

Jay of Melbourne,

Just because "the Yes campaign are calling for something completely new", that doesn't mean that there is no injustice or inequality. Using that logic, one could have argued that there was no in justice or inequality for indigenous Australians before the 1967 referendum because their recognition in the constitution was never there to begin with. But then you go onto mention homosexuals having the same civil rights as all other adult members of society. Of course they do. But they can't get married.

Civil unions (if they're what you're hinting at) are state-based and can differ across the country. They're also not recognised in other countries. But if same-sex couples already have all the same rights, then you should have no problem with them being allowed to marry. It’s interesting that you referred to same-sex marriage earlier as “pretend marriage”. I don’t see how you, as an atheist, can justify that in the absence of any inferred spiritual dimension bestowed upon marriage by a bigoted deity.

The bottom line is allowing some couples to marry and not others is discriminatory and beneath a modern society such as ours. To distract from this you offer up a red herring, implying some sort of sinister ulterior motive to control, bully and destroy society. I'm sorry, but that's just delusional and the story in the link you provided does nothing to support your assumptions about the motives or mindset of those in favour of marriage equality. I thought the stunt was pretty offensive too given the struggles the gay community have been through in having their relationships recognised and taken seriously without being given some shabby, dry, shallow option of a civil union the way a child gives you a half-chewed lolly before they reach for a fresh one.

//I can see no reason why the Marriage Act should be changed so that marriage is no longer defined as it has been for thousands of years.//

Ahhh... the old argument from tradition. I'm not sure if it is an official logical fallacy, but it is obviously poor reasoning.

It was traditional, for thousands of years, for men to be the property of other men. These days slavery is just not illegal in Western civilisation: it is regarded as anathema to basic decency.

No doubt Wilberforce and his cronies had to go head to head with a lot of people saying 'But this is how it always been! People have been keeping slaves for thousands of years, and the classical ideals upon which the enlightenment was founded also advocated the keeping of slaves. I can see no reason why the laws regarding slavery should be changed so that servitude is no longer defined as it has been for thousands of years.'

Wilberforce won. Something for all of the people advancing arguments based on tradition to consider.

It is a recognised logical fallacy, Toni Lavis. The Appeal to Tradition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

There's another one to add to the Slippery Slope and the Appeal to Nature.

Aj,
One doesn't have to be a theist to understand that the basic building block of society is the family and that heterosexual marriage is the long standing convention in all societies which currently exist or have existed in the past, even atheistic ones like the USSR and Red China. Same sex marriage only appeared in public discourse and political platforms about twelve years ago, before that not even Gays mentioned it and Gay activism has never been about equality, it's always been about recognition of alternative lifestyles and special treatment for special groups.
The response to the NZ prank is revealing because it shows that re defining marriage in that country has opened it to this kind of ridicule and created a new form of discrimination? Why shouldn't two heterosexual people of the same gender be allowed to be married and be treated in exactly the same way as other same sex couples?
Furthermore and taking a point from that article since when has marriage had anything to do with love? That's just another talking point invented in the last few years, what, are Gays suddenly going all Mills and Boon on us? I think even the fat spinsters who do read romance novels and watch romantic videos understand that it's all a fiction. Marriage is about a partnership between a man and a woman wherein she allows him to sire her offspring in exchange for a share of his resources, shelter and his protection, it's a bargain made between males and females in order that they might both pass on their genes.
No, we're right to laugh at people who get married in the nude or dressed as Shrek and Fiona and two people of the same gender walking down the aisle is no less ridiculous, just because the state recognises something doesn't mean it's recognisable or acceptable to the people.

Toni Lavis,
Slavery has not been abolished in Western society as you believe, most slaves in Western society are sex slaves. More girls are held as sex slaves then homosexuals seeking marriage. Your sense of justice ought to be vented at this injustice, but no, you overlook real injustice in Western society.

To claim homosexuals are born is spurious, as most same sex acts are committed by persons with failed heterosexual relationships. Like a young man I knew in the 1970's who grew up always keen on girls and developed a close relationship with a girl in his school that lasted for 9 years only to have her leave for another young man, which totally broke his heart at 22, he became a recluse and spent time with his mates and their cars and from there entered a homosexual relationship. He abandoned contact with his parents and other siblings. Homosexuals are supposed to be a natural relationship from birth equal to heterosexual, but they prefer to exclude themselves from family and heterosexual society.

Dear Tony,

<<These days slavery is just not illegal in Western civilisation: it is regarded as anathema to basic decency.>>

Quite so indeed.

Then what about the anathema of the state registering the private intimate relationships of people?

In fact, what about the anathema of some people threatening others saying: "we are the state and you shalt do as we tell you and not as we tell you not, or else we will punish you painfully"? I do hope the day comes sooner rather than later, for surely it will come, that this attitude is also seen by all as anathema to basic decency.

//It is a recognised logical fallacy, Toni Lavis. The Appeal to Tradition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition//

You learn something new every day.

But the argument was obviously dodgy; blind Freddy could have driven an uncooperative road train through the holes in that line of reasoning.

//There's another one to add to the Slippery Slope and the Appeal to Nature.//

Not to mention the Red Herring, the Non Sequitur, the Tu quoque and other Ad Hominem fallacies, and Question-Begging.

Somebody should be keeping score on this.

//Why shouldn't two heterosexual people of the same gender be allowed to be married and be treated in exactly the same way as other same sex couples?//

Dunno. Jay, do you know what the 'A' in LBGQITA stands for?

//Marriage is about a partnership between a man and a woman wherein she allows him to sire her offspring in exchange for a share of his resources, shelter and his protection, it's a bargain made between males and females in order that they might both pass on their genes.//

I reckon somebody has been watching a bit too much Game of Thrones. I sympathise; it is fantastic entertainment.

Toni, your comparison isn't valid and seems like clutching at straws.
Slavery was never a tradition, never widespread much less a universal building block of society in the UK and rigorously opposed from the date of it's adoption, that's why it lasted barely 200 years.
Slavery only persisted in other areas because of a shortage of manpower and it was an expensive, high risk solution, Spain and Portugal for example didn't have the surplus manpower found in the UK to re deploy to their colonies so they had to shell out for slaves, slavery ended when mass immigration became viable and industrial technology made muscle power obsolete in many areas of endeavour.
Wilberforce won but the economic factors, the fact that slaves cost a bomb and were less intelligent and less productive than free Irish or Englishmen outweighed any moral argument against the practice. When Britain's cities were overflowing and the Irish were starving the argument for slavery became unsustainable, after all a capitalist would have been mad to pay £2000 plus keep for an African when he could get an Irishman for pennies a day.

""That's just the way it's always been" isn't a reason for maintaining an inequality in society."

What inequality?
Perhaps the notion of equating the sexually intimate relationship of a man and a woman with the sexually intimate relationships of man and man and woman and woman is the real inequality.

Recently on the ABC it was stated that the assaulting of homosexuals was on the increase and Melbourne police are currently hunting the perpetrators of just such an attack, according to tonight's ABC News.

The can of worms?

//Slavery was never a tradition, never widespread much less a universal building block of society in the UK and rigorously opposed from the date of it's adoption, that's why it lasted barely 200 years.//

From wkipedia:

//Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as it is developed as a system of social stratification. Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as almost every other ancient civilization. The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe resulted in the taking of large numbers of Christian slaves. Similarly, Christians sold Muslim slaves captured in war and also the Islamic World was engaged in slavery throughout its history. Slavery became common within the British Isles during the Middle Ages. Britain played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade, especially after 1600.//

Full article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery

//Perhaps the notion of equating the sexually intimate relationship of a man and a woman with the sexually intimate relationships of man and man and woman and woman is the real inequality.//

Perhaps. And then again, perhaps not.

//Recently on the ABC it was stated that the assaulting of homosexuals was on the increase and Melbourne police are currently hunting the perpetrators of just such an attack, according to tonight's ABC News.

The can of worms?//

Worms are fascinating creatures that cause no harm to human beings. Lowlife thugs who go out poofter-bashing thirty years after it became unfashionable are clearly such slow learners that it pains me to think that we're the same species. I've met a lot of dogs smarter than poofter-bashers. Come to think of it, I've met some worms that are smarter than poofter-bashers.

Violence is not going to stop because same sex marriage becomes law. I suspect it may rise, as more come out into the open. Murder does not decrease because it is considered criminal, even as assault does not cease because it is a criminal offence. Law does not change attitude it sometimes aggravates some into criminal action.

Young boys will always bully the one different to themselves. Law will not change basic attitude.

Jay of Melbourne,

So your reasoning as to why same-sex marriage can only be a pseudo-marriage is because heterosexual marriage is a basic building block of society? Since when has the state of being a basic building block of society been a determinant for the validity of marriage? You’re very much a Natural Law, Formalism kinda guy, aren’t you. Two very discredited and unreliable philosophies of law and ethics.

Marriage is whatever society deems it to be, and while a large minority may disagree with it now, one day kids will learn about opposition to it like they learn about segregation. They're already bewildered by its opposition. By the way, marriage and family units have taken many different forms throughout history and there is nothing to suggest that same-sex marriage will detract from what we have now. There is, however, an abundance of evidence to suggest that equality is always beneficial for society and that inequality is always detrimental.

So what if same-sex marriage only appeared in public discourse and political platforms recently? That says nothing about the rightness or wrongness of it, and nor does it suggest that “it's always been about recognition of alternative lifestyles and special treatment for special groups.”

And what “special treatment”, by the way? What's so "special" about being treated equally? Do you really see them as so inferior that you think they should count their lucky stars in the event that we “allow them” to marry?

As for the NZ saga, there is no new form of discrimination. There would be nothing preventing two heterosexual people getting married if they really wanted to. The issue was the mockery that it made. Similar concerns have arisen regarding that Married at First Sight show.

Marriage has supposed to have been about love for the last few hundred years. You are harking back to its origins when you talk of shelter and siring. Either way, it’s origins are not a reason for objecting to same-sex marrige (and Toni Lavis just finished mentioning the Appeal to Tradition fallacy). Perhaps gay people are more advanced than us?

Oh please, Is Mise ...

<<Perhaps the notion of equating the sexually intimate relationship of a man and a woman with the sexually intimate relationships of man and man and woman and woman is the real inequality.>>

… enlighten us as to how that could possibly be the case. And please don't give us any baloney about how when you got married, you did so in the understanding that marriage would only ever be between a man and a woman.

I don't know how the increase of assaults on gay people supports the idea that the push for same-sex marriage is opening a can of worms. Are you honestly saying that if the gay community didn't start this push, then the assaults wouldn't be on the rise? Talk about victim blaming. If anything is helping to feed the violence against gays, then it is the attitudes of the anti-same-sex-marriage lot.

//Violence is not going to stop because same sex marriage becomes law.//

Really? Gosh, here was I expecting that as soon as one tiny change was made to the Australian marriage act we would see a sense of love and peace and fraternity embrace the whole world, and that man would lay down arms against his fellow man and all have a big group hug.

Thank the powers that be that we have the Great Prophet Josephus to dispel such naive fantasies.

//Young boys will always bully the one different to themselves.//

In my experience this is true. But usually, they grow out of it.

God save us from slow learners.

Josephus, you can't honestly expect us to believe that a heterosexual 'turned homosexual' after a failed relationship with someone of the opposite sex?

I don't know about you, but whenever I have had a broken heart in the past, it never once occurred to me to consider 'becoming' lesbian!

I am in absolutely no doubt that homosexual people are born that way.
Because of people like you they often hide their true feelings, sometimes for life.
If your story is true, then that guy was always gay, whether he had feelings for the woman or not.

Suseonline,

Then it is entirely possible that you are in fact a lesbian. You just haven't discovered it yet.

In your world, those who declare themselves to be homosexuals are the only ones who can go to their graves confident in the correctness of their sexuality.

Toni,
We don't live in Sumer or Ancient Greece or Rome, our society is a direct transplant of the U.K system and slavery was never legal here anyway and the White Australia policy was a direct response to the slave like conditions and wage undercutting caused by imported non European labour.
I don't care if Gays marry, I really don't, I'm opposed to liberal progressive ideals on the grounds that they're irrational and are implemented with religious zeal, even fanaticism. Since liberals and progressives are the movers and shakers behind Gay marriage and the majority of Gays hold illiberal, separatist or communistic views anyway I'd have thought my standpoint would have been self explanatory. Most of the things the liberal and progressive posters accuse me of are true, I'm a racist, a nationalist etc and I don't accept that everyone has or even should have inalienable rights and that state imposed equality would be still be hell on earth like it was in Ukraine circa 1932.

The thing is that homosexual people are not willing to compromise, while normal married couples, even to be married couples are willing to compromise.

Even me myself is willing to compromise in that I woukd allow same sex couples to marry, but, only if they accept that their marriage is different to that of normal couples.

To achieve such a compromise is truely simple as all that is needed is for another clause to be added to the marriage act that accommodates either same sex couples and/or normal couples who adopt the words 'a union between two people'.

Honestly, what could possibly be more simple.

So I put to the gays on this site, and their supporters, why won't you compromise and why is it that you insist normal couples change our ways to accommodate you?

Rehctub, in what way would you have to change your ways to 'accomodate' legal gay marriage?

Suseonline,

Have you 'evolved' into a lesbian yet?

You would need to check daily (every minute)?

Reference your assertions of Sunday, 21 June 2015 10:32:38 PM and my concerned reply.

Jay,

You simply state your opinions as fact, very much a revisionist view of history, opinions are not necessarily facts. No reference to convict labour as being nothing more that slave labour in every thing but name only. These non European workers, Australia never had to any large extent a mass of non European workers, Chinese on the goldfields may have been in competition with Europeans, but not in the sense we understand workers offering their services for hire, therefore in competition with others. Blackbirding, Islanders used as slaves in Queensland sugar industry is the most direct case of slavery in Australia, at what point, or at what price Europeans would have been prepared to do that work is highly debatable.
The British in North America, both as British subject prior to 1776, and after in shipping slaves from Africa, were heavy involved in the slave trade. William Wilberforce a British politician and anti slaver should make interesting reading for you.
"state imposed equality would be still be hell on earth like it was in Ukraine circa 1932." Interesting you make no reference to the most grotesque state of them all Nazi Germany 1933-45, then again you aspire for Australia to mimic that very state.

AJ,

We have been told ad infinatum that the majority of Australians support ssm, if this is so why is the bashing of homosexuals on the rise?

The attack in Melbourne was, apparently, quite vicious.

Meanwhile there is some reading on the matter of prejudice against homosexuals at
http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/gay-bashing.html

Is Mise,

The recent rise in gay bashings in Melbourne is being carried out by the same group of hoodlums, as far as I know. I haven't heard of any statistically significant long-term trend in a rise of gay bashings but if there is, then some of that may be attributed to the rise in assaults in general over the last twenty years or so. I don’t know. I had a quick look on the AIC’s website but couldn’t see any data show a long term trend there.

Either way, a rise in gay bashings doesn’t necessarily contradict all the polls showing that an increasing majority are in favour of marriage equality. In fact, it may even be consistent with it if a rapidly decreasing and radicalised minority are growing more desperate to demonstrate their disapproval of the increasing acceptance of the gay community in general.

Suseonline,
You must live a sheltered life. Where my wife and I lived just three years ago in Western Sydney, two women in their fifties having raised their children to teenagers left their husbands and moved to NZ so they could marry. They only met a couple years before moving to NZ. Of course they were born lesbian and only desired sex with woman, Nonsense!! It was a new discovery, just their husbands treated them disrespectfully.

It is simply amazing that:

- the discovery or 'evolution'(sic) to homosexuality is a one-way trip, infallible, whereas heterosexual sexuality is always open to question; and,

- that infallibility exists in the young. Only the gay young though. It is an infallibility exclusive to gays.

Any wonder the gay 'rights' campaigners also allocate high priority to removal of age of consent and dispute the very concept of minor, especially child minor. The State is useful for some things abut cannot be allowed to get in the road where it is inconvenient.

Presumably children can evolve to gay, with a little help from the only people who can help them shed their cocoon of childhood, namely adult gays.

Re. slavery.

Slavery in the British Isles existed for thousands of years and even after its abolition the conditions of workers, particularly those in agriculture, were often worse than in the days of slavery; a slave was worth money but an 'ag lab' was entirely worthless, in monetary terms, to the masters.
One of the Isles most prominent slaves was Patricius (5th C. AD) who won fame in Ireland where he endured some six years of slavery.

Things are getting complicated on both sides,

http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1086664/parents-freak-out-over-young-boy-twerking-at-gay-pride-event

Suze, it's the gays that want to change my ways, not me. I have no intention of changing either my beliefs or my ways to accommodate a minority group, as there is a very very simple solution, that being what I have suggested and, it's a compromise.

This sensitive subject requires give and take not just take and take.

//it's the gays that want to change my ways, not me//

What 'ways' do they want you to change?

Perhaps young couples who pledge themselves to each other for life and are capable and intending to raise children should be the only ones to be registered by the State. That would take the whole debate about equality out of the hands of the radical socialist left banging on about equality. Others should make other private contracts.

No Josephus, I am still not convinced that any woman or man would 'decide' to become gay because of a broken romance. Wouldn't there be so many hundreds of thousands more gay people in the world if that were the case? What rubbish!

Josephus, I would suggest that religious organisations should get out of the marriage business and leave it all to the state. Then we wouldn't have all this ranting and raving about the supposed moral dilemma of allowing gay marriage.

No one can say that any married will remain together for life, or that they will have children, whether they are gay or not, so I really don't see your point.

Suseonline,
Religions set up the institution of marriage, that every man had a wife and every wife was cared for for life, no matter which religion you cite. That the State record such in Western society emerged during the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, to sanction such unions. It is a Religious institution and always has been, just that atheist socialists now wish to charge the Church with discrimination, and they wont be satisfied till they reap millions from people who refuse to recognise their twisted and unscientific view of sexuality.

Rubbish Josephus.
There are plenty of God-believers who are fine with gay marriage too, so don't pile it all on to the dreaded atheists.
Just look at the heavily Catholic Ireland who voted in legal marriage,

Australia will soon follow, and your narrow little world will go on just the same as before....

Suseonline, Your view of society will shrink into oblivion if more and more are fooled to believe Homosexuality is normal; and children learn the reality of a scientific world. That only male and female, a mum and dad can produce children that in reality progresses society.