Shoshana Silcove posted a comment on Mark Baker’s blog on Galus Australis telling the world she is against gay marriage. That would make her a party pooper and a homophobic bigot, for starters.
Shoshana writes (her spelling errors are included):
I am against gay marriage but, that does not mean I would in any way supoort slaughtering people for being gay. One can see homsexuality as immoral yet, not be in any manner or form a proponent of persecution or genocide of gays. Persecuting or genociding any one group for any reason is horrifc and immoral too. I take umbrage with Mr. Baker’s implication (read between the lines) that those who do not want to see gay marriage legalised are inclined to be immoral persecutors or murderous beasts.
Let’s play a game here. I think I’ll call it ‘swapsies’. It goes like this. Take a word out of a sentence and swap it with one or more other words. It’s very simple. We’ll play the game using Shoshana’s statement:
I am against gay inter-racial marriage
I am against gay Jewish marriage
I am against gay Progressive-Jewish-is-not-really-Jewish marriage
I am against gay Muslim marriage
I am against gay Christian marriage
I am against gay indigenous marriage
I am against gay secular marriage
I am against gay religious marriage
I am against gay fat-person marriage
I am against gay really-ugly-person marriage
I am against gay disabled-person marriage
I am against gay marriage-of-convenience marriage
I am against gay marriage
That was fun. I’m sure I could play the game for hours on end. Will they bring it our for Xbox or as an Android/iPhone App? But what would Shoshana Silcove have to say about these? Would she approve or disapprove of any of them? Shoshana? Do any of them appeal to you? Send me your preferences. I’d like to hear them.
Dear Shoshana, who gives you the authority to determine which two consenting adults can or can’t get married? If same-sex marriage doesn’t please you, kindly refrain from commenting. I don’t care who you marry. It’s none of your business to make judgement calls about who I can marry. I may disapprove of your choice in marital partner, if anyone would want to marry you, but to be honest, I don’t give a rats arse.
Michael.
Thanks for that. What about preferences though?
So who do we vote for in the upcoming Federal election Michael? Seems like none of them are on our side…
A number of parties support same-sex marriage. There are the Greens, the Sex Party and the Secular Party for starters.
In Britain there is currently much speculation about the arrival of gay “marriage”. Three things need to be kept in mind.
First, marriage is the union of a man and a woman and is a universal social arrangement and not the preserve of any particular religion. It exists to provide a stable setting for male to female genital sexual intercourse and the children to which such intercourse gives rise.
Second, if gay marriage is brought in, will there in the interests of equality be legislation to the effect that lack of consummation of a marriage no longer provides grounds for declaring the marriage null and void? That must surely be the case if same sex couples are to be described as married, since by definition they are incapable of male to female genital intercourse.
Third, those campaigning for gay marriage cannot succeed without redefining what is meant by marriage. It would be helpful if Parliament were to agree the definition of marriage before any legislation is introduced about same sex “marriage”. This will bring a welcome degree of transparency to the debate.
David,
Marriage and sexual reproduction are completely unrelated issues.
Men and women bring children into stable relationships without the need for marriage. Similary, same-sex couples are quite capable of parenting and rearing children in stable relationships. Clearly a third party is required to facilitate the pregnancy for a same-sex couple, but then this is the case for many infertile heterosexual couples too.
Men and women who get married are not always capable of having children (eg too old or infertile) or don’t always want children.
There is nothing in the marriage contract that stipulates the necessity to have children. If that were the case, many marriages would be null and void.
Marriage is not the union of a man and a woman in an increasing number of countries around the world. You only need to open your eyes and see that there are a plethora of countries where marriage is between any two consenting adults, irrespective of gender.
There is no need for anyone to redefine the meaning of marriage. It is currently a civil contract (here in Australia at least) between a man and a woman. The only thing that needs to change for gay people to get married is the removal of the gender prerequisites. Nothing else.
Marriage often has no meaning. It is often a sham contract of convenience. It is frequently abused by heterosexual couples. Marriage is increasingly made a mockery of by the high divorce rate.
Why do you defend marriage so strongly? If it’s such a good thing for heterosexual couples, why deny it to homosexual couples? The stability it offers must surely be good for everyone.
One can only ask the simple question – what is your definition of marriage?
I’m quite happy to go with a gender-neutral version of the existing definition of marriage that the Australian government uses(*).
At present it is:
I’d be happy to see this become:
How does that sit with you?
—
* Refer Wikipedia – Marriage Act 1961
Not very well!
We need to scrutinise the word “union”. The marital union is consummated by male to female penetrative sex. Without that, the so-called marriage can be declared null and void. This fact reveals that the essence of marriage must include male to female penetrative sex.
What a load of piffle.
There is nothing in the current legal of definition of marriage in Australia that says anything about penetrative sex or needing to consummate the marriage.
The Australian government does not give a flying toss about what the married couple is doing and is certainly not going to declare a marriage null and void if the couple doesn’t have penetrative sex.
Where are you pulling this nonsense out of?