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Agreed.
Its also why the conversation needs to be had irrespective of how hurtful it might be.
Silencing the argument breeds resentment.
Get the debate out there, and that way every single misconception can be debated logically.
"everything you know is wrong"
Paul Hewson
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09-08-2017, 01:01 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2017, 01:27 AM by Mav.)
It's a disgrace that this issue has been singled out for a dodgy plebiscite. Unsurprisingly, the same conservatives who have pushed for this would run a mile from the idea of putting up climate change action for public discussion.
The first thing to note is that marriage is not a religious institution. Yes, priests can officiate at weddings, but marriages are a matter for the state. An atheist or a Satanist can get married without setting foot in a church. Marriage has been been stripped away from the Ecclesiastical sphere for centuries. I have no problems with the various religions continuing to decide who can marry in religious ceremonies, but they have no role in determining marriage laws.
Marriage enables spouses to benefit from a range of laws. Access to the Family Court to decide property matters is a big thing. Even heterosexual de facto couples don't have that access. There are constitutional obstacles to extending that access to gay couples who are in a registered "civil union", a beast that is commonly thrown up as an alternative to allowing same-sex marriage. Recognition as next of kin for the purposes of inheritance, access to patients or superannuation is another obvious issue. It's impossible to provide gay couples with the same legal protection without allowing them to marry.
It's obvious nonsense that social conservatives just want to protect marriage as an institution and would be happy for gay couples to be given equal status in some other way. Extending the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage is a simple legislative task. By contrast, hunting down the myriad ways in which gay couples are disadvantaged in legislation, governmental administration and the private sphere is a Herculean task that would require cooperation between State and Federal Governments. Every step of that process would enable social conservatives to man the barricades. Let's face it - social conservatives will fight to the death to stop what they regard as the erosion of their values. And they want there to be humiliation and punishment for gay couples as a demonstration that society condemns the "choice" they have made.
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Any chance we can get back to discussing football, sick of hearing about this quite frankly.....
Life is pain....... anyone who says differently is selling something.
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Great post Mav. A no vote in anything to do with same sex marriage is a vote for ignorance, oppression and bigotry.
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In your opinion. Others hold the opposing view. Does that make either party wrong- a terrorist is a freedom fighter viewed from the other side.
DrE is no more... you ok with that harmonica man?
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(09-08-2017, 02:19 AM)Professer E link Wrote:In your opinion. Others hold the opposing view. Does that make either party wrong- a terrorist is a freedom fighter viewed from the other side.
We are all beneficiaries of same sex marriage, because we all benefit from a society that is more inclusive, tolerant, fair, just and equitable. It's not only gay couples who benefit.
I am not a post modernist, no am I a cultural relativist. Everyone has equal right to express an opinion, but that doesn't mean all opinions have equal value. Some opinions are just sh1t, no matter how you slice them.
I have no idea what terrorism has to do with this.
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Professor E, can you please list the arguments against the amendment? It seems that there really is only a religious objection, apart from the ridiculous argument from Corey Bernardi that if gay marriage is allowed then people will end up marrying animals, children, inanimate objects or more than one person (the floodgates argument).
I have no problem with religious freedom. If you're a staunch Roman Catholic, then I agree that no law should compel you to marry someone from the same sex or have an abortion. But I have nothing but contempt for the spin that has developed in the US - that religious liberty entails being able to punish and discriminate against others who are deemed by your religion to be immoral. In the US, this marketing spin is being used to drive legislation exempting those who are opposed to homosexuality from anti-discrimination laws. They call them religious liberty laws. Because liberty is always a good thing, isn't it? I guess calling them "right to discriminate" laws didn't have the same beautiful ring to it.
So it was that a clerk of courts in Kentucky, Kim Davis, refused to register same-sex marriages after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was a right protected by the Constitution. And you have bakers refusing to sell wedding cakes to gay couples.
What the hell? Unless you're being forced into a same-sex marriage at gunpoint, what right does anybody have to discriminate against someone else? By all means, have your religious views. But render unto God the things that are God's and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. That's the basis of the Church/State distinction in Australia.
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(09-08-2017, 01:07 AM)malo link Wrote:Any chance we can get back to discussing football, sick of hearing about this quite frankly.....
Is anyone forcing you to read this thread? 
“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?” Oddball
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09-08-2017, 03:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2017, 04:03 AM by LP.)
(09-08-2017, 03:19 AM)PaulP link Wrote:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-23/sa...er/8831826
Yes, but for much of the population none of that is real.
However, playing the devil's advocate, having listened to some of my old associates. Genetics and nature is very real, and the rules apply to every mammal, there is absolutely no natural way interaction between two same sex mammals can result in offspring.
For some the same sex marriage vote is viewed as the thin end of the wedge, primarily because they are already aware of scientific research that allows an ovum to be fertilized by a partners skin cells creating a baby with genetics from two females. The research is being undertaken under the guise of allowing infertile men to have genetic offspring, but the sex of the DNA donor is irrelevant, and allegedly the major organisation funding the research is basically a LGBTI political think-tank sponsored by some rather wealthy LGBTI patrons.
Even worse for the rest of us, well the famous and wealthy anyway not so much me, in the US there have already been concerns raised about the technique because it appears that DNA coming from incidental contact could be recovered and used to fertilise an ovum. There is already allegedly a bank of genetic material being illegally compiled, stuff like celebrity hair or nail clippings, glasses, coffee cups, door handles even!
I don't know if any of this is as real as it is implied, but it's fears along those lines that have some people looking to vote "No" as some sort of tipping point.
Reality is far stranger than fiction! :o
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"
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