Dear Ttbn,

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah did not actually indulge in homosexual acts for pleasure: they only did so in order to cause suffering to visitors (this at least is the Jewish scholarly view).

Regarding discarded envelopes, I suggest that you should be careful: these could be traps, where the bar-code doesn't actually belong to any person. If you fill and post them, then the ABS would recognise the fraud and could match your fingerprints with those envelopes.

While I vote 'No', it is in no way an expression against homosexual people. In time, they too will realise that they are better off without legal marriage. If they want to be married, then I welcome and support the churches that marry them.

Joe:

“You've got it in one: " .... a better society, one where no one has to marry in order to gain rights which should be available to every couple."

i.e. a society in which relationships are strengthened and treasured regardless.”

This is where homosexual people lack dignity and have sold out to the government’s conditional distribution of those rights. They are prepared to marry in order to get rights which should be theirs by virtue of citizenship. They are prepared to do what the government says they should so they can have those rights.

Anyone who pursues a government issued marriage certificate in order to obtain those rights has little self-respect. This includes heterosexual people.

The only equality that homosexuals end up with is in the lack of self-respect. They are prepared to trade their dignity just so they can claim equality with heterosexuals. This generation of homosexuals will go down as the generation who sold their souls just so they could feed their need to appear as the equal of heterosexuals.

Nothing is more valuable than a person’s dignity – certainly not being married. Human dignity is an absolute value but being married is a very minor relative one.

Dear phanto,

Marriage is not a humble requestion for rights from a leviathan of sorts. Rather, it is merely a bureaucratic means of registering one’s interests. Why, one may just as well complain that the Torrens system is oppressive. However, like marriage, the Torrens system is there to create certainty and protect rights, not as a means of arbitrarily determining who may obtain a property.

If the government were standing over us like oppressors and arbitrarily determining to whom it will be granting marriage rights, then you would be right to protest. However, I fear both you and Joe have placed a slant on the situation that does not reflect the reality of it as accurately as it could. Like the Torrens system, marriage is a form of registration, not a tool of oppression.

Of course, that should be, "Marriage is not a humble request ..."

My apologies. How utterly careless of me!

Hi Yuyutsu, I went to Google Maps and for some reason I couldn't get directions to Sodom and/or Gomorrah. I checked the Geographical Name Board's web site as well, and they don't seem to list then either. i was thinking of spending my next holidays there. Are they anywhere near Bullsville? Is there a regular bus service? How do you get there?

I do not understand how you could vote in this government instigated survey, at a cost to the taxpayer of an estimated $20 per returned vote. Given your belief that the government has no legitimacy in the determination of marriage. By your participation in the survey you are giving tacit approval to the governments involvement.

If the CWA was to send you the same survey wanting to know if you approved of that organization changing their "law on marriage", would you reply? I would not, as I am not a member, I didn't renew this year, and because I do not think the CWA has any authority when it comes to marriage. Get my drift.

Philips:

There is nothing oppressive about it - quite the contrary - which only exacerbates the indignity of those who give in to it. It would be oppressive if you had to marry in order to get your rights but you do not. You have the option to fight for your rights by demanding the government give you your rights without condition. You do not have to accept the government's conditions. It is undignified to accept those conditions without any kind of fight.