While we are being asked to vote on the right for gays to marry, the gays are actually seeking marriage equality, not just the right to marry.

So how can we have marriage equality if gay marriage is not recognised as equal to many hetro couples marriages in their eyes.

I fear this debate will go on forever as the right to marry, if granted, may not satisfy the needs of our gay community at large. Then what.

PM Julia Gillard and her ministers Jenny Macklin, Penny Wong and others, made sure that any gay who was feeling in need of assurance of marriage equality could just slip into Centrelink for that gratifying recognition and ruling that their relationships are just as equal as 'traditional' heterosexual coupling.

Julia and her Emilys lister womyn were not keen on that 'm' word as in feminist despised 'marriage'. But they sure made gay relationships equal down Centrelink way. Perhaps Centrelink should be a sacred site for gays, as one of the very first places that their equality was recognised. Maybe statues of Gillard, Macklin, Wong and ors, with a tasteful message below, "Advise us of your (or others!) gay love and we will render you equal, tout suite".

rehctub,

I have only ever heard or understood the term "marriage equality" to mean equality at law.

Some will never accept the validity of interracial marriage, but that doesn't mean that interracial couples have don't have equality, or have not attained it in jurisdictions where it was once not legal.

<<I fear this debate will go on forever as the right to marry, if granted, may not satisfy the needs of our gay community at large.>>

Nah, I reckon once the older generation has died off completely, it will be about as much of an issue as mixed marriages. The same thing happened with with the Civil Rights movement in the US. The older, more conservative folk didn't all change their minds, they died off.

The younger generations seem genuinely baffled by opposition to same-sex marriage (intolerance is taught), and the Churches will adapt to accept homosexuality (some already are). They're forever adapting to social changes, regardless of what their book says. They'd become extinct if they didn't. I mean, how many churches will actually excommunicate, or refuse to marry, a divorcee nowadays?

AJ,

" They'd become extinct if they didn't. I mean, how many churches will actually excommunicate, or refuse to marry, a divorcee nowadays?"

The Catholic Church for one.

Nobody should have a right to marry and all existing marriages should no longer be legally recognised - that's equality!

Is Mise,

Yes, and the Catholic Church is rapidly losing members as a result of its unbending stance on various issues.

The Church may still be big and strong, but that's because they've had so much financial and political capital to play with. Let's see how quickly they change their position on their backwards stances when the Church's terminal decline approaches fatal.

The Catholic Church will adapt or it will die. And even then...

Catholicism is heretical anyway, so it doesn't count. Read your Bibles.

--

Yuyutsu,

That may be equality.

<<... all existing marriages should no longer be legally recognised - that's equality!>>

But it's not equitable. Learn the difference.