Mercury (Hobart)

Clearly a question of tolerance

MARRIAGE EQUALITY

- Paul Clemens Mt Stuart Michael Watts Cradoc Christophe­r Middleton South Hobart Tony Geeves Rosetta Ike Naqvi Tinderbox

I MUST thank Michael Watts (Letters, July 7) for pointing out the error of my ways. I had no idea that in asserting what consenting adults do in private is no one else’s business I was just “recycling the gay line”. Having myself been married four times, each time to a woman, I must admit to a degree of naivety in such matters.

Clearly, what I thought was a question of tolerance, acceptance and respect for human difference is just the thin end of the wedge. In the city of Boston, gay activists have been handing out to teenage boys condoms, lubricants and instructio­ns in order, one presumes, to encourage them to take up “vile and unnatural” practices. And why are they doing this? Mr Watts tells us that it is because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachuse­tts. Gee, Mike, who would have thought?

Doing a little research on Massachuse­tts, I was amazed to discover that the population, as at July 1, 2014, was 6,745,408 — an increase of over 3 per cent since the 2010 US Census. Surely, with this veritable tsunami of gay activities, one would have expected a rapid decline in population but, no, quite the contrary.

In fact, the world population has tripled in my lifetime (63 years). Heterosexu­ality seems to be more popular than ever. I don’t think there is any chance the human species will disappear as a result of people being unwilling to take up heterosexu­al behaviour. A far greater threat lies in stupidity and intoleranc­e.

At any cost

IN 2012, when the Giddings government introduced same-sex marriage legislatio­n into State Parliament, gay activists announced they had rock-solid legal advice that Federal Parliament’s power to enact national marriage laws applied only to the natural marriage of man and woman.

This is now convenient­ly forgotten, because gay activists say and do anything to get what they want when they want it. For example, gay activists use a false definition of tolerance to encourage young people into thinking they have no choice but to engage in behaviour that will ultimately destroy them, because they were “born that way”.

Shooting the messenger

I AM astonished at the acrimoniou­s tenor of some of recent letters regarding the Archbishop’s communicat­ion to the parents of children attending Catholic schools. The document which has led to such condemnati­on by some of your cor- respondent­s is a pastoral letter from the Catholic bishops of Australia to all Australian­s entitled Don’t Mess with Marriage.

This letter conveys the Catholic Church in Australia’s official position on the controvers­ial topic of “same-sex marriage”.

Surely the Archbishop of Hobart would be remiss were he not to communicat­e this position to the parents of children attending Catholic schools? Surely it is not unreasonab­le to expect that the parents of children attending Catholic schools might have some affinity with the teachings of the church?

That being the case, it would seem we are witnessing a classic case of shooting the messenger.

What is sorely needed in this debate is more sober and rational analysis of the opposing arguments and less emotive smearing of views counter to the populist, progressiv­e narrative.

High-rise living

THE Glenorchy ratepayers will wait to hear, as usual, that we will have the highest rate rise of all the councils, which is expected owing to poor use of finances. All the more for amalgamati­on with Brighton, going by their low rise.

Left stateless

SOME 37 politician­s rallied behind Tony Abbott (June 1) and his proposal to authorise the Immigratio­n Minister, rather than the courts, to strip terrorists of their Australian citizenshi­p. What a trashing of the precious rule of law that ensures no human being may be rendered stateless.

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