Gay "Marriage"

Our Prime Minister announces in the wake of the new British laws to recognise gay civil unions that he is opposed to "gay marriage". It is a fairly meaningless sort of statement. The British laws do not regulate marraige to allow same sex couples to marry. They allow the recognition of same sex relationships and indeed the ABC notes that "Mr Howard says while he is strongly in favour of removing any discrimination that exists for same-sex couples, he does not agree with the British laws".
This seems to me to be a contradictory sort of statement...but that never stopped Johnny before. Surely not recognising gay civil unions is discriminatory.
Why, I ask, are we so coy about homosexual relationships? Howard suggests "That's (The union of a man and woman) the common understanding of marriage in the Judeo-Christian tradition and I would be opposed to the recognition of civil unions".
I would agree with him concerning the common understanding of the Christian tradition, but likewise non-marital sexual relationships such as we call "defacto" are also outside that definition. There is no suggestion that we should not recognise these unions....the political imperative is all too obvious....so if we allow recognition of one group...defacto heterosexuals, and not another....civilly recognised homosexuals....what else is that but discriminatory.
You cannot have it both ways...but despite what the gay vote counters want us to think there are no votes in gay issues.