Foxy,

You are stating the obvious. Accepting only that which agrees with my viewpoint makes me just like everyone else, including you. I do, however, not allow other people to decide what I think, be it the media, pressure groups or individuals. I rely entirely on my own beliefs and values. Any agreement with others is coincidental. And I give consideration only to the opinions of other individuals, not the ABC nor any of the few conservative 'trendsetters' who think that they know better than people like us.

The CWA Victoria statement is like others on both sides probably due to situational factors and the lobbying of some persons with that interest.

Remembering that many voluntary organisations that do good and are the glue of society inevitably must seek approval for government funds. In Qld for example, for grants from the money collected from poker machines.

One body out of thousands of charitable organisations. Good on the honorary office holders though for they also directed individual members to consider and arrive at their own decision. Well done. Balanced and independent. Not something that Foxy mentioned, but it should have been added.

Now if only some of the very narrow partisan advocacy here could be extended to practical support for the problems being addressed by tghe CWA and others and with very little acknowledgement by the very superficial and forever whining media commentariat.

The Marxists have been marching through the institutions for 50 years, so I suppose there is no reason to think that they have not infested even totally wholesome organisations like the CWA. People often join voluntary organisations for purposes other than the obvious. When the ALF is so confident that it can be a political player by plastering YES everywhere, including on footballs, we know that we are in the grip of a very nasty and frenzied type of totalitarianism. Business are spending millions advertising their support of fake marriages, and we all know that their motives don't have anything to do with homosexuals, whom they don't give a damn about, and their 'rights'.

ttbn, as much as we would like to think we are "free thinkers" that can never be the reality. Our beliefs and opinions, your's included, are formulated by the social environment we are born into. From the very beginning of our existence we absorb that what is around us. Our first influence in life begins with our parents and immediate family, we are stimulated by the love of others, and it is that love and interaction, or lack of, which forms the basis of our future.
Then through education, both the formal education of school, and the personal education from others, which began the day we were born, we learn to comprehend both the physical at first, and later the more abstract components that form our total environment.
The media and their reporting is but one part of what influences us. What and how "news" is reported is critical in influencing our social attitudes. everything from how we view the government, to our stance on same sex marriage.

The Eighties radical feminist idealism of the Labor Gillard government has already denied individual autonomy and freedom of choice for homosexuals through extending the definition of de facto 'relationships' [called Common Law Marriage elsewhere]. Gillard's Sisterhood baulked at the term Common Law Marriage and added 'relationship' because while they wanted the 'married' entitlements for their own benefit, they hated marriage with a passion and had always sworn (as Emily's Listers in particular) to 'deep six' marriage ASAP.

In denying choice to homosexuals along with heterosexuals, because Gillard's changed de fact 'relationship' law automatically applies and decides married status, the State, its bureaucrat clerks at Centrelink and the Courts were now empowered to inform homosexuals (heterosexual couples too) when they were in Common Law marriages or not.

Individual choice and decision went out the window, where homosexuals could previously decide for themselves and might had had living arrangements that they regarded as convenient (shared accommodation costs and so on, solo living is now very costly) and casual (including more or less personal closeness as desired), the big-spending Gillard government could now deem them to be in Common Law marriage and chop down their Centrelink pension.

However it did suit the already entitled and well-off educated middle class straights (like Gillard) and gays who could benefit from generous married (new speak, 'partner') entitlements of public employment. And they looked forward to ease of claiming estates and superannuation. Those generous golden handshakes form public (and of course parliamentary) employment are inviting.

But the overwhelming majority of the herd, the 'punters' (sic) as the political elite refer to the public and homosexuals too, were substantially worse off through removal of choice and the certainty of the slow, complex and expensive Federal Court involvement in their private affairs.

contd..

All the so called SSM does is shove reinforcing rods through and pour concrete on the unfairness and denial of choice, the overbearing 'Big Sister' State compulsory and automatic involvement and interference in personal affairs. It further removes choice by making the de facto 'relationships' [Common Law Marriage] regulation so much harder probably impossible to fold back.

Yet those very same de facto 'relationships', Common Law marriages are exactly where the main problems are occurring, such as relationship violence and the involvement of the State, its complex Federal Court procedures and legal expenses, make breaking up so very hard to do.

However the prospect of SSM and the concrete reinforcing of Gillard's imposed Common Law Marriage that enables the State bureaucrats to decide relationship status (whether it was the individual and couple's intent and decision or not!) also has far reaching impact through hampering the flexing of social and sharing relationships that would enable better social, housing and health outcomes through innovation in group housing.

Not that those selfish middle class feminists and other well-off political elite would ever be worried about it, but older women especially and younger women with dependents too do stand to gain very substantially in choice and and desirable lifestyle from innovation that would see those houses and terraces in inner city areas demolished to make way for economical and innovative high rise group housing with gardens, creches, socialising areas and so on.

The State deeming of relationship status hampers, it does NOT help.

But why the hell should I, an ordinary citizen, have to spell that out on a site? What the hell are those bureaucrats and politicians paid for and what are they doing? Because they all travel heaps at the expense of the taxpayer and to places where such innovation is already occurring. And where of where is the 'old' Left who were unafraid of innovation and choice?