The institution of marriage currently has a high and respected status in the community because it illustrates commitment, reliability and it fosters the raising of children, on which our species is dependent for continuance.

However if the current act is changed and SSM is allowed the situation will change and probably quite quickly. Marriage will lose its respected status because it will be associated with those homosexuals that practice 'dirty' sex. Normal people will begin to shy away from marriage.

I never thought that Aussies would agree with such practices as anal penetration and anal licking.

Joe,

I don't give a frog's fat arse whether the British considered the aborigines to be people. What does that have to do with anything?

We have been through this three times already. Do you really need us to go through it a fourth?

Analogies don't have to have ever happened before (although, they have in this instance), let alone specifically in Australia (what's with that assumption, by the way?), because the issue is not what HAS happened before, but what SHOULD NOT happen.

<<In what way, incidentally, is the recognition of a simple right, equivalent to recognising people as people ?>>

What's the “simple right”? You mean access to marriage? That's an easy one: that fact that the denial of both are prejudicial and irrational.

And that's all my analogy needs to work.

Look, I get that the cognitive dissonance of holding two conflicting standards is an uncomfortable feeling, but that doesn't mean that my analogies are wrong.

Dear Banjo,

Please not another anally fixated member of the 'No' camp! Haven't you got better a argument to state your case? Damn mate I do worry about you lot.

The proportion of hetero-sexual couples who engage in anal sex for whatever reason is around a quarter.

I'm not sure how many practice 'rimming' but I wouldn't imagine they are inconsequential.

On the other hand there are a sizable proportion of homosexual men who never engage in anal intercourse. They include people like Stephen Fry.

So the obvious question based on your stated criteria my old dear is whether you consider the marriages of heterosexual couples who engage in anal sex to be invalid? Further would you support the marriage between two homosexual man who did not practice anal sex?

If the answer to either of these is no then you need to go find a different argument to support your prejudice.

Dear Joe,

Perhaps you need to actually read some of the posts
appearing in this discussion before you accuse me
of "strawman" arguments. Banjo's is the most recent
one on what he finds "disgusting" about same-sex marriage.

Therefore my earlier post stands.

Foxey,
The fact that most normal people find anal sex and anal licking disgusting practices should carry a lot of weight in any debate about SSM. No doubt this fact will affect marriage detrimentally as an institution. Those that support homosexual unions should find another word/s. Marriage already has a distinct meaning.

mhaze,

Since you have such a poor memory, and are apparently incapable of clicking links to past discussions, I’ll post it here again for your benefit:

mhaze: "… people who think that the nuclear family only came to prominence in Australia around 1940 monumentally fail that test” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7880#243942)

AJ: “I have now quadruple-checked my source, and before the 1940s, extended families were a small majority.”

mhaze: “So far you've offered no evidence other than a link to advertisement for a book which I found at Mitchell and which said nothing of the sort of what you claimed.”

AJ: “The information to which I refer starts at page 168 of the book. Here, I’ve uploaded a scan for you:

http://i.imgur.com/2Eav0GI.jpg”

Now that was a classic moment in OLO history! It must have been mortifying for you. You then gave a blundering excuse by raising an incorrect point, which would have been insignificant anyway:

mhaze: “No, no. Previously you told me that the book had several pages of information that supported your assertions.”

AJ: “Firstly, no I didn't. That was with regards to something else: … Secondly, since when did, ‘only one page’, mean the same as, “... nothing of the sort of what you claimed”?”

Then off you went into the night, not to be seen again until many weeks later; only to come back now and brazenly suggest that none of it even happened.

You're incredible.