Armchair Critic: "Hey thinkabit, Pretty sure my numbers were the same as yours"

Apologies, yes you're right. I skipped the word "registered" and totally miss-read want you said.

Thanks also Toni Lavis for correcting my maths mistake.

Is Mise: " Gives the "YES" vote a margin of 23.2%; I don't see the problem. "

It should not be the margin of the vote that matters but rather whether the majority of the Australians actively want SSM or not.

To demonstrate this, consider the hypothetical where only 10 people voted out of the whole of Australia, 9 said the Yes and 1 No, that's a margin of 90%,. Would you honestly claim this as a resounding win for the Yes camp that faithfully represents the desires of the majority of the whole population?

So what happens now? I think ttbn has covered it very well. It now goes to the 'soft cock' brigade and let's see if they grow a spine and vote according to conscience and their faith. Or whether they are going to prostitute themselves and go the way of YES because it is politically profitable to do so, and what the heck they will retire with a fat pension soon so who really cares.

The "hold out" mob are unbelievable, in desperation they demanded. and got, a very expensive plebiscite. Hoping beyond hope that their mythical god would work some kind of miracle, along with a whole lot of scaremongering on their part, they though somehow this would convince enough Australian to vote No. FELLAS IT FAILED BADLY. Get over it, get on with it, suck it it in, and get real.

thinkabit, think a bit about this, your distortion of the result is pathetic nonsense. Fortunately for you, you have the anonymity of the forum to hide behind. Just don't go public with your clap trap, because you will become a public laughing stock, you wont be able to walk down the street without having people rolling in the gutters in stitches, chuckling as you pass; "here comes that fool with his statistics!"

How do you count beyond 24, what do you do when you run out of fingers and toes?

Toni,

I know that your primary attack weapon is to (deliberately?) misconstrue what others say and then mocked this misconstrued version. I won't try to take that away from you since then you'd be struck voiceless. But...

when you say " I really can't see gay marriage as the death knell of religion" I do need to point out that is not even close to what I said. I simply opined that the churches would be harassed into silence on the issue. They will continue to speak about it furtively within their community but advocacy will eventually be off the table. The Tasmanian churches have learned that publicly advocating their views has adverse consequences (just as Victorian churches learned not to criticise Muslims by quoting the Koran). Religion won't be destroyed but it will withdraw into itself and cease to be an obstacle to the next 'progressive' agenda item.

Foxy,

"Users of slippery slope arguments should take skiing lessons. They really can choose to stop."

The next slide on the slippery slope isn't inevitable but it is always easier. All of the arguments used to advocate for SSM can be applied to polyamory and transsexual 'rights'. And having been made and made mainstream it will be easier to apply them when next needed by whatever 'disadvantaged' group wants to do so.

It was a mere decade ago that such luminaries of the left such as Rudd, Gillard, Penny Wong, the Obamessiah, Clinton and myriad others were of the view that marriage was a man/women thing and the homosexual community would have to be happy to gain civil union rights only. When Howard clarified that by changing the marriage act it wasn't done against any opposition to speak of. There was general agreement on the change. But a decade of #hashtag trendiness utterly changed societal views. It will be much easier to do it the next time around

Paul,

"plebiscite
noun
the direct vote of all the members of an electorate on an important public question such as a change in the constitution."

It was a postal vote, not a plebiscite.
The YES camp was firmly against a plebiscite, probably because it would have required all eligible voters to attend a polling booth/otherwise vote, the postal vote was voluntary.

thinkabit,

My best advice to you is live up to your nome de plume.

"It should not be the margin of the vote that matters but rather whether the majority of the Australians actively want SSM or not."

The majority of eligible voters had their chance and in these sorts of things, those who don't vote are considered to not care how the vote goes and, consequently, to be happy with the result.