Down here in Australian, we are currently being asked to vote on marriage equality, and it is really causing quite a stir.
In a nutshell, although same sex couple have the same rights as defacto couples, the big difference is that married couples enjoy additional legal rights. Defacto couples have the choice of marrying or not, whereas same sex couples cannot.
Here’s a post I put on Facebook earlier, and I thought I’d open the question to all my wordly Sotonians for their views.
WARNING ### This is a long post and may offend those of you with a sensitive nature, and if that is the case I wouldn’t advise reading the rest of the post…
Now, virtually all of my facebook posts are non-offensive or encouraging (or at least I try to be), so I apologise if this offends anyone (feel free to delete me if it does), but for the sake of my sanity, can somebody PLEASE tell me a verifiable, rational reason (not just some random youtube video or the rantings of a lunatic or bigot) for the NO vote?
I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion regardless of my own views, but some of the reasons I’ve seen so far have been, quite frankly, ludicrous. Opinions seem very divided, but for the life of me, I have yet to see any honest or genuine ones. If you are homophobic, just say so. To date, I’ve not seen one person who has aired that viewpoint (which would be very brave in the current climate, I agree), but some of the ones I have seen (and I’ve probably missed some others) are:
* The “No” camp are bullying me into voting their way and have threatened violence against people who vote “Yes”.
- Yes, I have to agree there are some extreme people out there. However, they are in both camps but because you already have a tendency to vote “No”, you aren’t looking for any examples of violent or threatening people who want to vote “yes”
* the “No” camp sent me a text message I didn’t want.
- fair enough, that is a bit annoying, but the government also sent you a postal vote you probably didn’t ask for either. It’s also quite likely that in the next election you will get spammed both electronically and via snail mail from pretty much everyone. It’s also illegal not to vote, so that’s going to put you in quite a dilemma!
* “marriage” is a sacred christian word. -
- Please. Firstly, the word didn’t originate within Christianity, so no, you can’t claim it!
You make a fair claim about the sanctity of the christian marriage ceremony if that is your faith, but the actual WORD is used by multi faiths (including those that permit multiple partners), and is also used to describe the joining of inanimate objects. If your faith objects to the ACTUAL ceremony - you needn’t be concerned as your faith will not be forced into any ceremony that is against its beliefs. The vote for marriage equality is a legal entity NOT a religious one.
* Schools will enforce a sex ed program that shows children dildo’s and will teach them all about gay sex and to experiment with their own sexuality
- Whether schools do that or not is an issue that I can see may cause offence (and if that is the case, then protest against that as vigorously as the law allows) , but it has nothing at all to do with marriage equality!
* The government has a hidden agenda and that the next step is to make paedophilia legal.
- I can’t believe the stupidity of some people. Just as a reference here - both paedo’s and murderers already have the “Right” to marry (as long as they chose a partner of the opposite sex of course). Even if the Government DID have that in their minds (I can’t believe I even had to say that - be sensible, people), rest assured if that ever comes to a vote it will most definitely be a NO result!