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I'm surprised that Strawman has joined together so firmly the issue of gay marriages with the issue of persecution of gays. In my view they are very much separate matters.
I am totally opposed to any laws regulating the behaviour of gay (or heterosexual) activity. Not even, I should add, with the usual 'I don't care what people get up to in the privacy of their own bedrooms' qualification. I don't think there should be laws against people, whether hetero or homo, getting up to sexual activity out in public, even though I would find it distasteful and would steer my children promptly in another direction.
But there are perfectly valid arguments that, in the context of it being a government regulated institution, marriage should be restricted to male/female bonds. Given that government rules are always one-size-fits-all, the current definition of marriage should not be lightly overturned. Marriage has always been a male/female bond. That this is so implicit in the word is the reason that nowhere, until now, has it been necessary to legally define it as such. For those common law enthusiasts, be aware that it is the common law definition of marriage that it is men and women.
The way forward, of course, is for the Government to deregulate marriage. A simple amendment would do the trick, repealing the Marriage Act, and replacing it with something like: 'Marriage is defined to be a ceremony, whether formal or informal, private or public, between two or more people who declare themselves, under whatever arrangements they choose, to be married, and the state of their relationship after that time until they declare, in accordance with those arrangements or by mutual consent, that the marriage has ceased.' Looks like I've covered divorce too.
(There would be a huge number of complicated consequential amendments to other legislation, given how many government programs and policies rely on a regulated definition of marriage.)
Most marriages would, of course, continue to be conducted formally under some kind of institutional arrangement, frequently in a church under its rules. Most would also be between one man and one woman. But this would also permit multi-partner marriages, same sex marriages and goodness knows what else.
In the mean time, though, a social institution like this ought to be left in accordance with the traditional view until such time as there is an overwhelming public demand for a change. Personally, I have little doubt that this will eventually be forthcoming.
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