In a recent debate on FB one post gave some interesting insights to our previous marriage laws in response to our new Family First Senators comments about leaving the current Marriage laws alone.
Matt Bratt made some good points ....
"She's also wrong on the definition of marriage being unchanged from when it was written "...by Australias forefathers..."
The legal definition of marriage now comes from the 2004 amendment to the marriage act. Which incidently never actually defined marriage. within the original marriage act. The present definition comes from the marriage amendment act 2004. This really goes to show the women doesn't have a clue about marriage in Australia, both legally and historically.
The amendment was brought about by Howard in 2004 with the only visible reason I can see was his bias toward supporting a chrisitan orthodox view of marriage, while ensuring other possible definitions were ruled out completely. Even so. The full definition of marriage, as defined by the marriage amendment act 2004 is never properly referenced or quoted in arguments on ssm and if applied fully in defining the status of relationships, would rule out a number of relationships which claim to be marriages due to breaching the act. People can't have it half way, as it's applied at present. Either the definition of marriage per the act is complied with fully by those wanting vilification of existing marriages. Else, if needing to be amended for any reason, then there's a strong argument for also amending to include same sex marriage
Also may surprise people, especially those who cry fowl of islam marrying off teenage girls, that as late as 1942, the legal age for marriage in Australia was 12 years for females and 14 years for males. Makes you wonder about the history of our own western culture."
Accordingly as previous laws permitted younger age marriages whereas now its defined as peadophilia which could be removed once again off the law books by permitting equal marriage rights to SSM couples down to age 12 as is apparently currently permitted in Islamic & indigenous communities in Australia.
Surely you can see why we need a plebascite and a PROPER & FULL debate on all aspects raised by the proposal being put forward by the supporters of SSM.
