I think it was the Muslim who touted as attractive Islam's rules - down to the most tedious everyday occurrences that most religions don't bother with - that Tim was mocking.
Rules just differ depending on your worldview of choice.
The difference between Islam and western religion is measured by degree. Divorce your Catholic husband in California and it's just a matter of paper work and a battle over the estate. Muslim women in Pakistan cannot divorce their husbands and if they try they usually end up dead, scarred by acid or must flee the province or country.
Gay marriage is hotly debated in the west but there is no debate in Iran, if a man is openly gay he will be sent to prison or murdered.
Islam and sharia law allow a married man to beat his wife for anything he deems an insult to his authority, such as poor laundering, cooking habits or wearing makeup. If a Jewish man beats his Methodist wife in Bu$hitlers AmeriKKKA, he goes to jail.
I'm amazed by your attitude, what about girls who are traded off like chattel or honor killed for having a secret boyfriend. What about female genital mutilation, clitorectomies aren't performed on Mormon girls, but it sure the hell is on some Muslim females in Syria and North Africa. Mennonite women living in Idaho must wear dresses but they are allowed to be seen in public without a male escort, veil, headgear and full body coverings, try doing that as a Muslim woman in Islamabad. Baptist women in Arkansas are allowed to drive a car unlike Muslim women in Saudi Arabia.
Measure twice, cut once.
yeah, what about it cal? what about all that stuff? where did i say i support Islam's craziest ideas? i dislike Islam more than the other religions because of how it conceives of women. my point was that Blair was mocking rules, taking the opportunity to attack Islam on the basis of having banal rules, without acknowledging that other religions and the politics of the God-fearing leaders can have just as strange ideas.
sure, we don't treat our gays as badly as those living in fanatical Islamic states no doubt do. but shouldn't we treat them the same as we treat everyone else? why are they still a lesser class of people in our enlightened Western society?
In support of Gianna, I'll remind everyone of Blair's attempt at 50 (or was it 90) day preventative detention - without charge. That's not a rule , although, it is a way of enforcing people to act in a certain 'approved' manner.
Not too different really to any of the kinds of rule systems he 'opposes'.
fight the power honey.
Gianna, there are those of us who believe that marriage, in its very nature, means a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman.
It's true that this concept of marriage is not as strong as it once was. It is being challenged by a more open concept of relationships in which what matters is the desire of participants to be together for a particular time.
In the traditional view there cannot, by definition, be gay marriage.
In the newer view, there can be not only gay marriage, but any kind of arrangement you can think of - including the Islamic custom of polygamy.
Please note that the acceptance of gay marriage will not be without consequences for the rest of us.
Our public culture will no longer celebrate distinctively heterosexual concepts of husbands and wives, as these will be replaced with the more androgynous concept of "partners".
The acceptance of gay marriage will make it even more difficult to publicly affirm that children do best with both a father and mother.
The acceptance of gay marriage will also encourage the acceptance of certain aspects of gay culture within the understanding of marriage, such as non-exclusivity within a relationship (partnered gay men are very rarely monogamous).
I don't deny your right to support the new understanding of marriage, nor do I deny that the new understanding has made ground even amongst heterosexuals.
But you are wrong to make an opposition to gay marriage appear senseless or arbitrary. If you do so you fail to grasp the nature of the debate.
but shouldn't we treat them (gays) the same as we treat everyone else?
Yes we should.
Marriage is an archaic institution which is virtually meaningless in western societies, and was formulated to legalise the production of offspring and allocate responsibility for the care and upbringing of same.
As homosexuals cannot produce offspring without external intervention, it is reasonable that they not be eligible for this status.
the whole thing is nothing more than attention-seeking, political point-scoring and an attempt to obtain financial benefit, nothing more.
I'd sooner get rid of marriage all together- it costs those of us who think it's a load of old toss a bloody fortune through funding the family court and welfare when the whole think almost inevitably goes tits up.
PB, that argument is tired. there are plenty of heterosexuals who can't achieve fertility without intervention either (see reports about the increase in IVFs). you're saying they shouldn't be allowed to marry either?
I just find it interesting that on the day Alexander Downer is implicated in a scam of the UN along with the Australian Wheat Board and Saddam's trade ministry, Tim's setting his minions onto a single mum near the beach.
Music: A not particularly perceptive single mum into the bargain.
I'd sooner see marriage done away with- it's outlived its purpose anyone and means bugger-all; I'd also like to see people take responsibility for their lives and the products of their liasons, rather than relying on dozy taxpayers to foot the bill for other's inability to organise their shit.
As to the AWB thingo, what's that got to do with this issue?
We might finally get rid of this anti-competitive abomination, but not for the right reasons. Anyone who thinks you do business outside the first world (and sometimes even in the first world) without backhanders has obviously never done any business anywhere. Try getting a container on or off a wharf in SE Asia without greasing about twenty palms and your freight 'aint going nowhere.
Music, whether Gianna is a single mum or not is irrelevant, and it's a bloody aggravating thing to be defined by your biological/marital status in discussion.
Gianna, I've not read any reports lately on the increases in IVF, but I think you'll find that a lot of new caseload comes from women who delay childbearing and *surprise!* find that they've left it too late.
So the fact that gays cannot get married in Australia, and that Australia does not recognise 'marriages' between gays performed overseas, is 'proof' that Howard is homophobic.
This is irrational. The same situation appled to PM Keating, PM Hawke, PM Fraser, PM Whitlam... all the way back.
All homophobes, then?
Hardly. By definition, marriage is a religious (and latterly secular in some nations) recognition of something which can only occur between a man and a woman. I have no objections whatsoever to legal recognition of a relationship between gays through some form of secular construct by which they can have similar legal rights re property etc, where appropriate.
This is not marriage, though.
Your 'argument' is not one at all, merely a polemic, and irrational to boot.
(BTW If you want to see REAL homophobia, google 'iran homosexual hang' and do an image search.)
MarkL
Canberra
wow! goes to show what happens when you throw sex, relgion and politics into the mix.
we just need to make things fair for people who happen to choose same sex partners (eg financially, they shouldnt' be barred from inheriting from their loved ones, super splitting, or being 'next of kin' for hospital decisions etc).
people need to stop constantly worrying about everyone else's sex lives!!!
(strangely enough, in my experience a lot of 'homophobes' don't find lesbian sex scenes in movies quite so bad...)
Mark Richo, if that's your view of marriage, I suggest that you don't marry a man. If you look for the adam's apple, you'll have it sorted out before accidentally grabbing a handful of wedding tackle.
Gianna, you don't understand. If people are ALLOWED to get gay married, every hetero Aussie jackeroo will flounce off into the sunset with his best mate Dave. That's why all single people are gay now. Cause they can be.
you Righties need to ask yourself, what exactly is "marriage"? whether or not it is a traditionally heterosexual concept based on a religious background is irrelevant since it's currently still an institution held in high regard by many atheists in our secular society too.
what is "marriage"? a formal declaration of love, in contract form with certain legal ramifications. i see no absolutely reason why this is something that should only be available to heterosexuals. and the only reason i am even going on about this issue is because our Govt seems so obsessed by preventing AUstralians from conducting gay marriages in other countries as well.
anyway, Mark R is deluded if he thinks that heterosexuality is any guarantee of good parenting. i suggest he think about lastnight's news reports that one in 5 Australian children are abused in the home.
there's an easy solution to this anyway. if you can't fit gays into a concept called "heterosexal marriage", just create a parallel legal concept of "homosexual marriage", and then maybe we can all move on.
Currently, in Canada we are very much in danger of having a Prime Minister elected who has said that, if elected, he would introduce amendments to the government's same-sex marriage legislation if it doesn't conform to his party's vision. He believes that homosexuals should not be allowed to have "marriages" and should be restricted to "civil unions".
I think that marriage is fundamentally religious and that in the past it was a union between man and woman, but times have changed.. And I see no reason why religious homosexuals should have any less right to a union recognized by the church (as well as their God) than any heterosexual.
oh yeah--i see Tim Dunlop has similar thoughts and takes it further on his blog (www.roadtosurfdom.com).
Your comment "PB, that argument is tired. there are plenty of heterosexuals who can't achieve fertility without intervention either (see reports about the increase in IVFs). you're saying they shouldn't be allowed to marry either?"
is ridiculous. Married couples who cannot concieve without intervention generally DO NOT KNOW THAT BEFORE THEY MARRY. Gays do.
Your moral equivalency is getting worse and worse.
What put such a chip on your shoulder about the nanny state? You and your PC, left wing, mates made it that way.
Sorry, I mean't to say your efforts at moral equivalency are getting more and more INFANTILE.
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