Last night on The 7PM Project we witnessed what can only be considered the utmost absurdity in the anti-gay marriage debate.

If you didn’t see it, here’s the video.

(Note this video is copyright Channel 10 and The 7PM Project and has been used without permission for the sole purpose of this post)

Key points of absurdity:

• Jim Wallace’s comments regarding marriage being about motherhood and fatherhood, and what is means to the child

Not all married couples (referring to the common male/female relationship) have children or even want children, just like not all couples with children are married. Marriage does not equate to children, and linking them is a fallacy.

• The American representative speaker Rebecca Hagelin stated that gay marriage will lead to pedophile marriage, and that nothing would satisfy a pedophile more than to “legal claim a child as their own”

Marriage between an adult and a child is not even on the agenda here, in fact this is beyond the realms of both ethical and legal. I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Australia, be they heterosexual or homosexual, who would veto this sort of proposal. Why Jim Wallace wouldn’t back away from these comments is pretty clear though, he has on a previous occasion cited homosexuality as the reason priests raped children, this being his justification for the child abuse within the church.

• Jim Wallace’s comments that introducing gay marriage is a slippery slope, and that it would lead to polygamy

In this instance Jim Wallace may well have been right, polygamists may have been arguing to make polygamy legal, but that’s not what’s on the table here and is not what is being discussed. What is being discussed is gay marriage, between two (and only two) committing individuals, that is all and anything further to that is pure speculation.

• Jim Wallace’s comment that the London riots were caused by children who came from families without a father figure

Not only can this not be backed up, but also is an insult to single parent families (whether that parent be the mother or father). I’d be interesting in finding out how Jim Wallace would explain to a single parent who’s other half has passed that however they raised their child won’t be satisfactory.

Even more importantly is the fact that marriage is no longer a religious term, it’s actually not even a Christian term with many major religions having their own marriage ceremonies, all of which are legal in Australia. And then you can have cases like myself where my partner is agnostic and we had a civil ceremony with a marriage celebrant, again completely legal in Australia with no religious context involved.

It is for this reason I wonder why Dave Hughes asked the question of whether the Australian Christian Lobby is fighting for a vocal minority since 53% of Australian Christian support gay marriage, Jim Wallaces obvious response was always going to be to imply you’re not Christian if you don’t go to church regularly so in his eyes your opinion doesn’t count and attempt to discount the polling results. What should have been focused on is the 67% of Australians support gay marriage, since marriage is a legal and not a religious term.

Backing this even further is members of the Australian Clergy coming out and saying they support gay marriage, so now we’re not even dealing with people who say they are of a certain religious denomination but don’t attend church, but rather the members of the church itself.

My personal favorite though from Chrsitian side of the debate is the selective Christians, but that I mean those who quote marriage as being something holy and from The Bible and is God’s word, and then refusing to comply with other sections of The Bible. For example Proverbs 22:15: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” and Proverbs 23:13-14: “Withold not discipline from the child, for if you strike and punish him with the (reed-like) rod, he will not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” These are both outlandish comments in today’s society, but in my opinion if you’re to claim to be Christian and follow The Bible you should follow it in it’s entirety, and not be selective on the bits you choose to follow.

That said, and before anyone calls me bias or anything of that nature, I don’t believe the pro-gay marriage side is completely innocent either, for example I have seen this posted as someones status on Facebook many times this year.The argument here is to denounce straight marriage, and then call for equal rights. I’ve got no problems with people calling with equal rights, and equality when it comes to marriage, I do have a problem when one side chooses to attack the other side and then call for equality.

I’ve also come across some absurd pro-gay marriage comments on twitter, here’s an example and the key point from the article it references.Now don’t get me wrong here, these two ladies are clearly brave people, they deserved to be treated with the utmost respect. However I don’t believe their sexuality, gender, race, the fact they are married, etc,  had anything to do with what they did, I just believe they two extremely brave people. Suggesting they are brave because they are a gay married couple is just absurdity and is an insult to the brave act they performed.

This also borders on suggesting that gay people are better because they did this act and being gay makes you some sort of super hero, I don’t believe gay people are better than straight people just as I don’t believe straight people are better than gay people, I believe everyone should be treated equally, and the argument for equality is what the focus should be on.

Both sides in this debate need to take a step back and stop the absurd comments and slander, until there is an open and frank discussion on this topic, and both sides and willing to have an intelligent discussion and don’t run and hid when their opinion is challenged, then the debate won’t move forward in any reasonable fashion.

But then again maybe the obfuscation of  the debate is the Australian Christian Lobbies true agenda …