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"leads the reader to be astounded, and bewildered that a man with such a loose grasp of the English language can be employed" - Anon
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New.com.au is running this story on the passing of the Civil Unions bill in the ACT.
Should be passed later today. Let’s hope so and let’s hope that the Federal Government doesn’t use it’s powers to overturn it this time.
The bill passed just after lunchtime. So, let’s wait and see what the Feds do!
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How long do we have to keep it up?
As much as I am opposed to the idea, I agree with Gary Humphries that the ACT should be allowed to make its own laws in the same way the states can.
If there is indeed a conflict with the marriage act then that is a matter for the High Court.
They talked about this yesterday on Triple J’s Hack.
Rudd will flatten it with his big no apology, tough but humane, religious stick.
I only believe in gay marriage when both chicks are hot.
On a more serious note, we’ve been down this path before, and wasted time and effort. Why do it again?
It would actually be nice to see Rudd try to flatten this, if only so it could go to the High Court and become a national issue.
Compared to Europe in particular, the political attitude towards gay marriage in Australia is stupidly backwards and out of date.
Jim Jones said :
Agreed. This plus the recent asylum seeker debacle makes me wonder if we really did vote Howard out? We did, didn’t we?
And compared to Africa and the Middle East the attitude here is enlightened. So what?
For right or wrong, it’s always been a divisive issue and probably will be for a long time. I for one support it. I certainly feel very strongly about our elected assembly being overruled by the Federal Government, irrespective of the issue.
Perhaps if the sri lankan immigration debacle goes on much longer, rudd will allow ACT to have same sex marriage, just to get something else on the front of thse papers for a few days.
Sepi, that is just cynical enough to be right. Will be interesting to see.
VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :
I hope it is because the ACT government is not a bunch of quitters … I am trying to teach my kids that if you fail at something, then try and try again, change tact, review strategy and never, ever give up. You just never know – this might be the time they succeed. I’d really love to see the ACT lead the way on this issue.
VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :
What do you do when an issue that’s personally important to you fails a few times, simply drop it?
Thoroughly Smashed said :
Work out another way to solve it. If petitioning your govt repeatedly fails, try something different. If you want to be married to your gay partner, how about doing it in a place where it’s legal? Not to be cynical, but if I lived in a place where my kids weren’t allowed to go to school if they were female, I’d move somewhere where they could.
I’m not suggested people wanting gay marriage should all leave, but thinking of different ways to get the outcome you want rather than trying the same thing over and over could be more effective.
If it were me personally, I’d go ‘get married’ overseas somewhere, then return here and register the union. For some that would be an acceptable outcome, for others not. How about some outside the box thinking…?
i am against gay marriage……that will lead to gay divorce……and THAT will be bitchy…..
I think Sepi has nailed it with this one…
It is very saddening that there are so many bigots in australia that want to deny equal rights to homosexuals.
VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :
People who support gay marriage are not necessarily the people who want to be married to their gay partner. They are people who expect and demand equal rights for everyone.
If I wanted to be married to my gay partner, going overseas to get married because it is not legal here would not be satisfactory. Besides, legal gay marriage overseas is not legally recognised here in Australia.
GnT said :
You’ve hit the nail on the head.
Denying a person fundamental rights based on their sexual orientation is at the very least inequitable and borderline illegal. Here we have the local government actually trying to do something about it, you know, representing as many of their constituents’ interests as possible, for which they should be applauded. The outcome doesn’t affect me at all, but I for one hope they don’t back down.
I can’t wait for Senator Lundy to come out and do her usual “I support it, but I can’t vote against my party” spiel. I find this really annoying, if you truly believed in something you would vote for it regardless of what your party will do to you.
I believe it should definately be passed. I am sick of the bigotry associated with two people wanting to profess their love for each other.
GnT said :
So you wouldn’t do what I would do. No problem. What WOULD you do?
muFasa said :
As controversial as this will probably be, I expect elected representatives to vote in support of their stated policies, which they use to become elected. Their personal opinion is irrelevant.
I don’t agree with gay marriage at all, and am glad the federal government is (or hopefully will be) acting in my interests.
@ #20
I don’t believe that de-facto couples who are too lazy to be married or rubber up should be able to raise children together either.
When is the government going to come to my aid in my chosen field of discrimination?
Sloppery, you’re in the minority in this town. Most Canberrans have supported equal rights, including gay marriage for years. The Fed should stop meddling. I also look forward to the possibility of the QUILT festival (see separate post) coming to Canberra … it rates as a Queer Little Town too doesn’t it? ;o)
Buzz2600 said :
Quite possibly – and that’s ok. But I bet I’m in the majority federally.
sloppery said :
Umm … how is gay people getting married ‘against your interests’?
Jim Jones said :
This discussion’s been had before on this site, so how about “it’s against my interests”, and we leave it at that.
Well, that’s no fun.
At the risk of being moderated for pointing out the obvious – sloppery is trolling, have a look at all his/her posts in this and other topics.
Trolls are creatures with a voracious apetite, if you don’t feed them regularly the wither up and disappear.
Just a thought.
Not on this thread… I trolled on the speeding thread to get started, but this place is kinda growing on me. I remember a couple of threads here, though, where the people who didn’t want gay marriage got called all sort of nasty things and were personally attacked for their opinions. I have no desire to go through that, if for no other reason than it achieves zero.
Ten reasons why gay marriage is wrong:
1) Being gay is not natural
- And real people always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, hearing aids, polyester, and air conditioning, tattoos, piercings and silicon breasts
2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay
- In the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall, or hanging around black people will make you black.
3) Legalising gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behaviour.
- People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract. Lamps are next. Who knows, Mormons might want to have multiple spouses. What’s that? They already do?
4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’ t changed at all
- Hence why women are still property, blacks still can’ t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed
- And we can’t let the sanctity of Britney Spears’ 55- hour just- for- fun marriage be destroyed
6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children
- So therefore, gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our population isn’t out of control, our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children,
- Since, of course, straight parents only raise straight children.
- In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in Australia.
(Did I miss the lesson where Jesus says He hates gays? )
9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home.
- Which is exactly why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms .
- Just like we haven ‘t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, multiculturalism, social welfare or longer life spans.
I think people don’t want teh gheys to get married because the weddings would completely out-awesome any run-of-the-mill hetero-wedding and show everyone up.
sloppery said :
I was one of those people. I expressed an opinion about not liking use of the term ‘marriage’, and got called all sorts of things. I won’t bother again.
i paticularly like how r. slicker’s
became a smiley face; but misses 11) gay marriage will destroy belief in the bible
- and the world’s best selling book couldn’t bear that; which is why mebbe the rudd government caved in and didn’t go with the changes to publishing the industry here fought so hard against..? jim jones’ post describes the missing no. 12)
and i hope deeza teaches his/her kids to change ‘tack’ – not tact: we’d hope they remain tactful, even dealing with bigots… but otherwise, among the best responses here, ta and big up to you!
#31
Best ever refuting of the stupid arguments homophobes continually trot out on this issue. Well done Madam/ Sir!
and #32
Ha! Totally.
Jim Jones said :
Haha for sure!
And imagine what an amazing jolt for the local economy it would be – nothing like a wedding to get people to open their pockets!
The most awful part of any wedding is where the celebrant has to read aloud “by law a marriage is between a MAN and a WOMAN”. Way to bring everyone down. Makes me feel sick every time.
sloppery said :
The most recent Newspoll on the subject shows around 60 percent of Australians support gay marriage.
Whatever my opinion happens to be this is a pointless exercise. The Feds will knock it on the head and the Assembly’s time wasted once again.
vg said :
And there is the buzzkiller…
I personally don’t agree with it, but it doesn’t matter either way. It won’t pass.
The legal issue is the conflict with the defined terms of ‘Marriage’. Why does the partnership need to be labelled a marriage? Is it the fancy certificate? Is it the massive ceremony? Surely we can drum these up under different labels?
Should the ACT Government reverse the ‘alcopop’ tax coz they have an alcoholic within their party and constituents disagree with the Federal Governments position?
I’ll prepare to cop it now.
@lula, that line always makes me feel slightly ill… here we are celebrating someone’s love, and getting reminded that someone else’s love is not legit.
astrojax said :
‘Change tack’ may technically be the correct idiom, the term ‘change tact’ is also commonly used as an abridged ‘change tactics’ or ‘change in tact’. Please check with Mr Google if you don’t believe me. I stand by my original post and that is what I’m teaching my kids
ahappychappy said :
Not agreeing with the popular view on this site seems to make one a bigot. Sigh.
CSRI – The best troll-spotter in the universe
Seriously people…what is it you want? A legal union…or to be able to say the word ‘marriage’??? I would hope the former.
I am a proud heterosexual Godmother to my best friends’ (a lesbian couple) daughter. I would love to see them joined in holy uniontrimony but could not give a flying f*ck if it was called a ‘marriage’ or not.
It just seems kind of logical for it to be legal…and really, it is such a non-issue to me. It would make my friends happy…and that is all the convincing I need because I love them.
A really on topic comment was made by Julian Morrow at the Andrew Ollie lecture. There are two audiences – your primary audience and those who are offended. You’ll never make the second crowd happy and they aren’t usually affected by any decision except to be outraged.
Ignore the outraged and make life better for those people in your primary audience
There’s a little bit of innacuracy creeping in here, starting with the original post.
Civil unions have been legal in the ACT for a bit over 12 months. The new legislation changes the arrangements slightly – whereas previously, the civil union was not allowed to include any kind of ceremony, now, under the new legislation, it can. It doesn’t have to, but it’s an allowed option.
So the short answer is … this isn’t revolution. This is incremental change. You take a compromise. You step back. Wait a year. And then you come back and see whether you can renegotiate the compromise into something better for you.
It’s really not rocket science.
simbobloke said :
Revolution through evolution!
lula said :
Ergh, I didn’t know that. We’ve been trying to decide whether we get married in NZ or Australia, and if that is a non-optional part of the ceremony in Australia that certainly adds to the case for getting married in NZ where we can opt for a civil union (something which is available to both hetro and homosexual couples.)
What gets me is most people really don’t care if a gay couple is “married or not”. Its about equality for everyone. If the religous zealots don’t approve of gay couples having rights, then why are they not lobbying to stop de facto couples having rights. After all they are living in sin according to there rules.
The sooner people realise that everyone has a right to be treated equally the better. Australia has so many different religions these days I feel disgusted that any religion feels it has the right to dictate what is right for all Australians.
As a Canberran I feel that everytime the government overturns a decision that my right to be treated equally has been diminished.
georgesgenitals said :
Yeah, unfortunately it seems if you disagree with the majority view you’re labelled as:-
Stupid;
ignorant;
intollerant;
arrogant;
discriminatory; or
a bigot.
But oh well, the beauties of anonymous forums.
ahappychappy said :
That probably happens because the reasons given for disagreeing with the idea of same-sex marriage are, by and large:
Stupid;
ignorant;
intolerant;
arrogant;
discriminatory; or
bigoted.
If it walks like a duck …
If you have an argument against same sex marriage that isn’t any of these things, more power to you, I’d love to hear it.