Marriage equality

If Tony wants everybody to stop talking about it, it's pretty simple: hurry up and do it already. Seriously, it's not that hard.

 

Yep. No brainer.

Zero cost to implement, no harm to anyone, benefits others. I don't understand the opposition. If you don't want to marry a gay person, don't propose to them.

 

Opening a can of worms? Its a hard issue and one that not easy to discuss.

 

Why is it hard? It's just allowing two people who love each other to enter in to an essentially highly conservative social structure that only affects those two individuals.

It doesn't force anyone to do anything differently in their own life.

 

For me it is just that marriage is a concept that was developed by religion and it has always been between members of opposite sex i.e. male and female.

I agree those who feel strongly about being with the same sex should be allowed to do as they please. However, marriage is a concept that has always been between a male and female. You do not need to marry someone to say you love them and nor do you require it for legal purposes from what I know off.

When people who are against this argue the discrimination card is always used. At the end of the day no one is required to be married to do anything. You can have a civil union which is the same as a marriage. Therefore legally you are one. Also the defacto laws give the same powers.

Why not call it something else? Why not call it a Union of two people who are of the same sex?

 

Marriage is not a religious institution in Australia. In fact one of the central tenets of the constitution is to ensure that Australia is a secular country. Not a religious one.

It is purely a legislative term. And it wasn't until recent amendments (07-ish from memory) that it actually stated man and woman.

The original concept of marriage was the transfer of ownership of a woman from her father to her husband. It was a recognition that women essentially were the property of men, and that is not a tradition that I think is one to be proud of.

It's not a constitutional matter either, as the constitution simply says that parliament has the authority to make legislation regarding marriage.

 

Except that it didn't. Marriage pre-dates the Old Testament (at least), and historically has been a civil contractual matter. The church didn't even get involved in celebrating marriages until around the 13th century. Churches can only marry people because they're empowered by the state to do so. (And the vast majority of Australian couples, around 2/3 to 3/4, choose a civil ceremony.)

Even if one agreed that marriage is religious - which religion? The ones that recognise polygamy? Or child marriage? Or those that recognise gay marriages?

As for the rest, this "separate but equal" is what they fought against in the South 50 years ago. Why do blacks have to go to our white schools? We'll build them another school, just for blacks! Why do they need to sit in our section of the bus? We gave them their own section!

Marriage is a civil contract, overseen by the state, that confers benefits. In order for those benefits to be restricted to a subset of the population, there needs to be a compelling argument in favour of discriminating. And there simply isn't one. (That I've ever heard.)

 

Great I have learnt something. I just find that most people of the same sex want to be different and don't want to be the norm. Marriage seems like the normal thing to do. It is a bit of an oxymoron. The stats with marriage isn't that great either 50%. So I wonder if the same sex couples will want that part of it as well.

The thing is once people change marriage from a man and a women to between same sex what stops it from being anything else. I know this is a cliche argument but I think most societies have come to agree that this the current normal ( between one man and one women).

Society at the end of the day dictates what is the norm. In the old days those things you said like polygamy, child marriage and whites vs blacks were normalised. Today is not not accepted due to us becoming more aware of what is right and wrong.

I feel that if the Liberals didn't have the backing to block the bill they wouldn't do it. This could obviously change.

 

Well, life is not a Priscilla movie. Plenty of gay people just want their kids to have married parents, to make their mortgage payments, and to get a new job - the same things all of us want.

Consent. Any two consenting and capable adults should be allowed to marry. (It may eventually extend to more, but polygamy presents unique legal challenges that aren't applicable to two-person unions.)

 

Why don't we just abolish marriage instead?

 

Within Australia, that would provide equality and our laws on de facto marriages would protect parties' rights, so I don't have a problem from that perspective.

But I can't imagine a bunch of elderly people taking too kindly to being told they're no longer married, and I can't imagine Tony wanting to tell them that.

Also, wouldn't this create challenges with regards to cross-border issues? e.g. In the USA, common law marriages have next to no rights, whereas marriages do. Could parties who are de facto in Australia choose to be recognised as a "married" couple when they go to live in the USA?

 

Been living next too Gay Men both sides for over 26 years and they were here before we bought in,, I don't have a problem with it ,,as long as it does not become compulsory..

 

Yes, sure could create problems on the international arena - most countries don't recognise de facto.
Lets just abolish religion, and legalise marriage.

 

Yeah, as the sister of a gay man who suffered enormously for being different as a teenager, I'd wager rather a lot that he would've given anything to just be "normal".

 

Where are the people protesting divorce or tattoos or shellfish?

 

I think that acceptance has grown as more and more gay people "come out". My grandfather was a fairly committed homophobe until he realised - and he didn't need to be told, he came to the realisation on his own - that he had a gay grandchild. When my brother visited, my grandfather always asked after his partner. When Pop died, aged 94, he'd left instructions as to what he wanted in his funeral notice, listing "Mark and Michael" amongst his grandkids. And this in a small country town, where he was well-known but I imagine that few knew that his grandson was gay.

So proud of what an amazing man he was.

 

'cos the divorce lawyers would go broke.