No point scoring

No cheap slagging match or name calling. No point scoring.

I still question whether the Gazette should print letters such as Roger Marks’s. Ian Smith (Warragul) is spot on. I feel the letters are sometimes printed for their novelty value or to boost circulation.

I still feel shocked that people in our community would allude to homosexual people wanting to marry their own family and it gets published with little consideration of its impact.

There will undoubtedly be much discussion about marriage equality in the coming months, if not years. I would hope as a community we can do this without being totally insensitive, demeaning or hateful toward the people who seek marriage equality.

These people are my friends, workmates, relatives, my friends’ children. They are great parents, supportive of their families and friends, contributors to their community and more.

Our laws are not sacrosanct. They are constantly being altered to reflect shifts in our society's attitudes and behaviour. As recently as 1959 the Darwin government refused Aboriginal woman Gladys Namagu permission to marry her white fiance, Mick Daly. The Australian Marriage Act changed that in 1961; in 2004 gender specific references were added to the Act: “a man and a woman”; in 2009 “de facto relationships” became legally possible.

No doubt the marriage laws will change again, sooner or later. Jeannie Haughton, Drouin