//Now if it is a 'yes', then rest assured a larger number of yes voters would have voted than the no's, quite simply because some no voters could not care a less.//

Nope, that doesn't necessarily follow. Latest figures for turnout are 78.5%, and the math ain't hard: on that figure if the yes vote is above 63.7%, then it follows that at least 50% of the voting population favour SSM.

//However, should the MP's vote yes, this does not ensure marriage equality, it would simply mean the marriages are equal in law.//

In the same way that n!ggers and Jews and gyppos aren't really equal to Aryans just because they're equal under Australian law?

//But this is not about law, it is about marriage equality and to be accepted as equal, one must gain the acceptance of the masses and many no voters will never accept that.//

I don't think anyone cares.

Homophobia is an anachronistic irrelevance and the tide of history is against you.

I hope all the nurses at your aged care facility turn out to be gay... and that you piss all of them off with your homophobia, thus ensuring a miserable stay for yourself as you shuffle toward the grave.

My apologies ahead of time, but I'm going to sound
like a broken record and repeat what I've written
in the past.

Here goes:

Each society views its own patterns of marriage, family,
and kinship as self-evidently right and proper, and
in the past at least - usually as God-given as well.
Much of the current concern about the fate of the
institution of marriage and the modern family stems from
this kind of ethnocentrism.

If we assume that there is only one "right" marriage and
family form, then naturally any change will be interpreted
as heralding the doom of the whole institution. It is
important to recognise, therefore, that there is an
immense range currently in marriage, family, and kinship
patterns; that each of these patterns may be, at least in
its own context, perfectly viable; and above all, that both
marriage and the family, like any other social institution,
most inevitably changes through time, in our own society
and in others.

cont'd ...

It shall be interesting to see how Australia has
voted on the issue of same-sex marriage and what
the government decides to do.

Foxy,
Give us examples of your wild claim in advanced successful societies.

Quote," It is important to recognise, therefore, that there is an
immense range currently in marriage, family, and kinship patterns; that each of these patterns may be, at least in its own context, perfectly viable; and above all, that both marriage and the family, like any other social institution, most inevitably changes through time, in our own society and in others".

Dear Josephus,

As one society after another has industrialised over
the course of the past two centuries, there has been
a major, global change in family and marriage
patterns - a change
that involves a fundamental shift in people's loyalties.
Essentially, people have come to focus less on their
responsibilities toward their kin and their families,
and more on their desires for self-fulfillment as
individuals.

As one sociologist observes:

Adults will follow job opportunities even if it means
breaking ties with relatives. Married women will go out
to work even against opposition from their husbands.
They will leave unhappy marriages, sometimes without
their children, especially in the middle or upper
classes. Husbands will leave their economically
dependent wives...The presence of children no longer
preserves marriages. The oldest child will no longer
give up educational or other personal goals to support
needy brothers and sisters or aged parents and grandparents.
Young people will choose marital partners or live together
in heterosexual or homosexual relationships with or without
the approval of parents.

This shift in loyalties has had dramatic effects on family
life. And today you get single-parent families, cohabitation,
serial monogamy (people marrying more than once), reconstituted
families, (one that's put together from the fragments of
previous families), childless couples, "open" marriages,
gay couples and gay-parent families. Plus a growing number of
people are choosing to remain single.

The point that is being made is that what is happening is that
there is an increasing toleration of a
variety of alternative marriage and family styles.
This is due in part to economic
and cultural diversity, combined with a highly developed
sense of individualism.

In this environment people tend to make decisions about
marriage, divorce, abortion, child-rearing, and the like in
terms of what they, personally want rather than in terms of
traditional moralities, obligations to kin, or the other
impersonal pressures that previous generations unquestioningly
accepted. Many people are modifying the family system to suit
their individual needs.