h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is that a personal view of Rudd's? Is he religious?

Ivan, you did catch the mood and it left a lump in my throat. Even the usual weddings often don't have that same feeling. You couldn't have done better with pictures

Of course it is legal here now and I think it should be, even if only from a legal point of view. Partners of all kinds lose out to families if anything happens to one, without a legal safeguard.

Websailor

Yes kea, Rudd is a regular church-goer, etc. It never ceases to amaze me how these people can keep their religion out of their politics until it comes down to extending equal civil rights to inoffensive queer people like me. Hypocrisy and organised religion, hand-in-hand again... For all that I'm a Rudd fan on most issues, this is enough to keep me voting Green rather than Labor. (Once Julia's in charge, as I'm sure she will be one day, then I'll reconsider.)

Webbie, M and K are definitely lucky in that their families are 100% supportive and would respect their wishes in the event of Something Bad Happening. But even with that in mind, it's probably just as lucky for them that K is a top-rate lawyer. They've taken steps for everything to be arranged within the limitations of existing laws to cover off joint property, power of attorney and other issues like that. It's a nuisance, and something that most people don't have to go through as they get it all covered off with a marriage certificate, but at least K knows what's necessary.

I'm still not sure how religion even comes into it.

Many people are unaware that one of the common religious wedding vows was originally made from Ruth to Naomi...

You know, this bit:

Where you go, I will go; where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!

And the relationship between Ruth and Naomi is described in Hebrew with a word that's only used one other time in the Bible - to descripe Adam and Eve's.

Absolutely right, Mala. Thanks for bringing that up.

Religion shouldn't come into personal relations. It has no place in matters that are entirely a free choice made by two people.

To paraphrase K's brother's speech - when two people have managed to find each other in this complex world, it's nobody else's business; they should be free simply to Be, on their own terms.

It's also a question of why a person's religion should affect someone *else* - religion being entirely a personal thing, now that it's finally being separated from government.

Mark Twain said that "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby cannot chew it", and I think a similar principle applies here.

It's a bit like someone saying they don't like apples, so nobody should be allowed to eat them, and oh, incidentally, there's a bit in a book about eating apples being an altogether Bad Thing because it leads to snakes and angels with fiery swords.

As long as it's consensual and doesn't harm anyone else (being offended at what someone else does, when it's not directed at or intended for you, isn't "harm") then why should anyone get to interfere?

Anyway, a loving relationship between two people of whatever description and combination of preferences is about more than sex, which many "opponents" are reducing it to.

Obviously, there have to be some safeguards in sexual relationships, like protecting children. (Amazing how many idiots confuse homosexuality and pedophilia, isn't it? If you'd not leave your little boys alone with a homosexual man, why would you leave your little girls alone with a heterosexual man? Same thing.) And preventing exploitation of other people - but that, for me, doesn't fall under "consensual" anyway.

Ah yes, the stupid 'gay = kidfiddler' thing. I won't even say what I think about that, because it's far too early in the morning for me to be bursting blood vessels. It's hard to see how we can get around that when we still have Members of Parliament [and right little members they are, too] who seem to believe it.

I must admit that I make sure I'm not left alone with children - but that's not for their protection, it's for mine. It's the same reason male trainee teachers used to get told never to close the door when alone in a classroom with a female student. (At least that's what they were told in the early 60s, when my mother was a trainee teacher. She felt it odd at the time that the women were never told something similar about male students, but then Mum has always been less naive and more earthy than most of her friends.)

Mala, I love that Mark Twain quote.

Ivan, that's beautiful writing.

TRiG.

Glad you liked it, TRiG. I did take rather more trouble of it than I usually do with journals.