When a panelist on the Drum last night said that John Howard didn’t call for a plebiscite to change the marriage act to specify it as a union between a man and a woman, former Howard government minister Jackie Kelly stridently interrupted, shouting that it was Jesus who said marriage must be between a man and a woman and that it has been this way for two thousand years.

It is hard to know where to begin dealing with a statement like that.

The bible does say in Leviticus that homosexual behaviour is an abomination. It says the same thing about eating pork or shellfish, charging interest on loans, and a whole bunch of other restrictions that were a part of the Old Testament Law Code. It also says that homosexuals should receive the death penalty. Paul also says that men having long hair is “unnatural” and that women shouldn’t speak in church. Does Ms Kelly think those laws from thousands of years ago should also be enforced?

Genesis 2:24 states: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This statement is made in the story of Adam and Eve. Does Ms Kelly want us to reject evolution and accept that tale too? And what of Cain who must have married his sister? Does that mean incest is ok?

For most of Church history, matrimony had been celebrated without clergy and was done according to local customs. The church did not get involved until the Middle Ages.

Another bizarre objection raised by Ms Kelly was that the plebiscite was too vague in that it did not discuss what would happen if a gay couple split up … what would happen to any children?

Apparently Ms Kelly does not realise that we already have laws that deal with marriage breakups. Perhaps she thinks we need different laws for homosexual couples in that regard too.

She also dragged out the slippery slope argument in which we will apparently end up marrying our vacuum cleaners unless the good Christian folk save us from the degeneracy that will inevitably eventuate should we allow gay people to marry their partners.

Marriage is a civil union. If some want to also have a religious ceremony, that is their choice, but if the arrogant stupidity displayed by Ms Kelly last night is any indication of how this discussion will progress, it won’t just divide the community on the issue of marriage.

This debate has every chance of turning even more people away from religion due to the sheer idiocy of the arguments they are bringing up. This is discrimination, pure and simple.

If it troubles you that loving couples may be given the right to marry, “give it up to the Lord”. You have no right to inflict your opinions on the rest of us.

Give it up to the Lord