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Recent Comments

1. It is easy to see where Michelle Gratttan and the Age stand on this issue, the headline says it all - the 'Outlook bleak' if gay bill goes to conscience vote.
   Those who think as I do would have been much more upbeat and happy about the event.

   Posted By: Desmond

2. This is very good news. Id on't believe that such marriages are part of God's plan for our world.
   Unfortunately we live in a world that is becoming more and more 'anti God',and gay marriage only adds to that.

   Posted By: Paul Garton

3. I think we all need to be very careful about what we understand as God's plan, to learn some humility and sense of profound limit, because too often 'God's plan' is nothing more than our own myopic world view and desire to impose it on others writ gargantuan.
   Let's debate the merits of same sex marriage, but let's also not pretend we are savvy with the depths of God or that God is our tool by which to silence and too often eradicate others.

   Posted By: MJ

4. Paul: I believe love and commitment are very much part of God's plan.
   How sad that in the media's perceived need to draw the battlelines the wisdom and sensitivity of Bishop Foley's plea for affirmation of all forms of lifelong commitment seems to be going unheard.
   How ironic that a Church that preaches continence in (heterosexual) marriage appears totally to rule out this possibility for our same sex attracted brothers and sisters.
   What would Jesus do?

   Posted By: Margaret

5. It’s obvious that human sexual expression is geared to the possibility of bearing and raising children in a family.
   I do support the concept of Civil Unions.
   

   Posted By: Kathleen

6. What I cannot understand is why we the people have not been asked our opinion on this subject.
   It is a moral and community issue which we should be all voting on so I think politicians should go further than asking opinions of their electorate when only the passionate will answer. let us have a vote on it for all the people.

   Posted By: Nola

7. I don't believe it is up to any of us to say whether two people who love each other should not be able to declare that love in a bond of marriage.
   We are not here to judge, but to care and respect each other.
   It can be difficult when we are confronted with ideas that are not the way things should be. But we must treat each other with the love and acceptance that Jesus taught.
   I think the Catholic church, my church, should be more inclusive, compassionate and accepting. That would have such a positive effect on mankind.

   Posted By: Cate Wallace

8. Margaret: I did not understand Bishop Foley's beautifully crafted article as being a 'plea for affirmation of all forms of lifelong commitment'. Instead, I understood it as being a call to retain the defination of 'marriage' as we currently understand it - but if, as a society, we are forced to legally recognise same-sex attracted unions, then, pragmatically, if that is so, find another word for them, but do not call them marriage.
   And I do not understand your reference to continence: Oxford Dictionary defiNItion of continence: temperate, chaste, having normal control over one's excretions.
   Finally, given the news today that politicians appear to be listening to their electorates on this issue, that people generally do not wish to name same-sex attratced unions as marriage, perhaps we should at least entertain the possibility that the whole issue is a media 'beat-up'?
   It will, however, be interesting to see if Malcolm Turnbull votes to retain his seat, or his soul.

   Posted By: Judith Taylor

9. Cate Wallace: If you want to re-define marriage as meaning merely 'two people who love each other being able to declare that love', then I hereby declare that I love my cousins, sisters, brothers, mother, father, daughters, sons, in fact many people of all ages and both sexes.
   Do you reagrd me as 'married' to them, or is that too inclusive for you?
   The push for same-sex 'marriage' has nothing to do with allowing people to declare their love or being inclusive, compassionate and accepting; it's about trying to normalise sodomy in the public mind and pressure the State and the Church into endorsing the lie that sodomy is something positive and good.
   

   Posted By: Peter G

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