Same Sex Marriage Debate (6 Viewers)

[sida1049]

There's a different between committing an act (changing something), and omitting to commit an act (not changing it). This vote was out for a Change. If the majority did not vote for a change (regardless if they didn't vote or they voted no), then it shouldn't change. Law reform comes about when the majority want the change (meaning they seek it - obviously if someone doesn't care they are neither seeking out the change or opposing it.

There is no difference between action and inaction. An act by omission is still an act. You still don't quite understand the problems with your arguments after all that, which surprises me, because your eloquence isn't representative of your rationality. The numbers in my previous post speak for themselves, and you refuse the severe absurdity of what you're suggesting.

The reason why no one adopts your view of legislation is because it is ill-defined. It means that depending on how we phrase the question (and assuming the voting population is perfectly rational), the same issue that is voted on will lead to different results, and this is unacceptable, because problems should be ideally independent of its phrasing (the same problem should be expressed positively or negatively with equivalence). You are saying this: legalising SSM requires >50% affirmation of the voting population, and since we only have 48% of affirmation the opposite must take place. But according to your same logic, if we instead give the question of whether we should not legalise SSM, and assuming our voting population is the same, we'll only get 30% affirmation, so the opposite must take place. This is a contradiction. Choosing to act and choosing not to act are the same thing. You can't claim that there is a fundamental difference in one of the options without also bearing the various severe contradictions.

Again, I'm not saying the non-voters are no voters, I'm saying that yes voters were the only ones actively seeking the change.

I am not assuming the non-voters' stance, I am saying that under half the population WANT (not if they don't care) the legislation to pass.

Yes you are. Read the first sentence you've written again. You're automatically grouping the other 20% of the voting population as not seeking change. Sure, you sugarcoated with "actively" in there, but that doesn't change that you've decided to label that entire group of people as "not seeking change". If you want to be correct, you should simply say that we don't know about the 20%. And even if you want to claim that they are not for "yes" (which obviously isn't completely true), then equivalently you would also need to make the claim that they are not for "no", and you end up nowhere.

This is ALSO overlooking the fact that the vote wasn't even well-regulated (with people not receiving theirs, some people taking more than one vote etc.)

Sure, but no matter what data set you're working with, there are always measurement errors. But even if we take into account the measurement errors here (which, of course, are largely based on anecdotal evidence) and increase the standard error, we still end up with statistical significance. In fact, if we increase the standard error to an absurdly and unreasonably high number, the impact on our current result will be negligible, and we can still safely and validly infer that the other 20% of the voting population would have voted "yes", if they had voted correctly.

Honestly dude, I don't really know what to say at this point.

 

[sida1049]

I don't think we can make a comparison between a self-selected 'poll' and a compulsory election...

Selection bias isn't the only measurement error. Compulsory elections have the issue of people voting even though they seriously don't give a shit, and more people who don't understand the issue (due to apathy), and that's something that you're less likely to find in the SSM poll.

I don't have the numbers to back up this claim, but you don't have the numbers to back up your much more severe claims either.

 

[boredofstudiesuser1]

ah yes the Holy Spirit convicts people of the Gospel; I have said that previously, but as I have tirelessly said, I also voted no; but think that it comes across to me, that marriage is more important than the Gospel. the art of losing well doesn't mean accepting homosexual marriage as you have inaccurately claimed. it means admitting our opinion on marriage does not have weight in the public sphere and instead of complaining about the methodology and over semantics of the survey, to face the fact that it is the Holy Spirit's job to convict people and fighting for our rights or our version of marriage isn't helpful to that witness not because we shouldn't speak up; but because Christian witness has been damaged because Christians have not shown love in this. (by this you they will know you are my disciples)

your response to the vote was to try to poke holes. I don't think that is helpful or appropriate way forward when our opinion is not held/agreed with.

your first sentence is also where i dispute. 60% of australians who voted (emphasis), whose votes were counted/valid; wanted same sex marriage. Democracy and decisions are made on those for instance who participate in the election not those who for some reason or another do not vote. If hypothetically the 20% did vote, they could have voted for or against, which most likely would not change the outcome.

this is where I disagree strongly on. neither me nor John are suggesting, as you have implied we do that we accept same-sex marriage morally. This is not what we are saying. usu

I'm not saying that my view should have weight in the public sphere when we're talking about homosexuals getting 'married' - which I think will basically be turning marriage into a civil union - but we've seen throughout the world, and with the attitude of the SSM supporters that a knock-on effect of religious rights to freedom being violated is something that occurs.

We were promised that we wouldn't be forced to do anything differently if SSM was legalised, and that SSM would not change our lives (but rather 'just those wanting to get married'), but when we make mention of amendments and protection of our rights to recognising religious marriage as a union between man and woman (within our own practises), we're told we are discriminating and people actively seek to take away our freedom of thought.

I wouldn't care if this wasn't the case.

 

[boredofstudiesuser1]

There is no difference between action and inaction. An act by omission is still an act. You still don't quite understand the problems with your arguments after all that, which surprises me, because your eloquence isn't representative of your rationality. The numbers in my previous post speak for themselves, and you refuse the severe absurdity of what you're suggesting.

The reason why no one adopts your view of legislation is because it is ill-defined. It means that depending on how we phrase the question (and assuming the voting population is perfectly rational), the same issue that is voted on will lead to different results, and this is unacceptable, because problems should be ideally independent of its phrasing (the same problem should be expressed positively or negatively with equivalence). You are saying this: legalising SSM requires >50% affirmation of the voting population, and since we only have 48% of affirmation the opposite must take place. But according to your same logic, if we instead give the question of whether we should not legalise SSM, and assuming our voting population is the same, we'll only get 30% affirmation, so the opposite must take place. This is a contradiction. Choosing to act and choosing not to act are the same thing. You can't claim that there is a fundamental difference in one of the options without also bearing the various severe contradictions.



Yes you are. Read the first sentence you've written again. You're automatically grouping the other 20% of the voting population as not seeking change. Sure, you sugarcoated with "actively" in there, but that doesn't change that you've decided to label that entire group of people as "not seeking change". If you want to be correct, you should simply say that we don't know about the 20%. And even if you want to claim that they are not for "yes" (which obviously isn't completely true), then equivalently you would also need to make the claim that they are not for "no", and you end up nowhere.



Sure, but no matter what data set you're working with, there are always measurement errors. But even if we take into account the measurement errors here (which, of course, are largely based on anecdotal evidence) and increase the standard error, we still end up with statistical significance. In fact, if we increase the standard error to an absurdly and unreasonably high number, the impact on our current result will be negligible, and we can still safely and validly infer that the other 20% of the voting population would have voted "yes", if they had voted correctly.

Honestly dude, I don't really know what to say at this point.

1. It's not the phrasing of the question, it's the action taken. If neither camp has the majority votes, NO action should be taken. Yes majority for SSM, results in an action. No majority for SSM, results in an omission to act. What I'm saying is that we can't use the converse because it is not an action. When you say 'the opposite must take place', you're creating a presumption that leaving marriage as it is, is an action - whereas law reform is the true action here.
As a result if not enough people voted to make a majority, the optional postal vote obviously wasn't the best way to address the issue.

2. BUT NON VOTERS DID NOT SEEK CHANGE. That's the whole point of what I'm saying here. If they didn't vote, they obviously didn't seek the change, because they didn't do anything for the change to happen. I am not saying that they opposed SSM, just saying they didn't necessarily want/not want it to happen.
We can't assume whether they were for 'yes' or 'no' - that's where I stand on this part.

3. I don't understand how we can end up inferring that the 20% would vote yes... the possible measurement error could go either side...

Regardless, so we don't keep repeating ourselves, I just hope there are amendments and regulations that support freedom of thought, religious practise etc. for those opposing SSM. And that SSM supporters are on board with that as they previously said they would be.
(E.g. 'legalising SSM won't change other people's lifestyles')

 

[spaghettii]

I don't think we can make a comparison between a self-selected 'poll' and a compulsory election...

Which is also not a change in legislation/law reform - just a temporary position in government being filled.

True, my comparison was pretty shitty. To be fair though, 1) the US election isn't compulsory, hence why I used it to relate to this, and 2) electing people into a position of power still brings about changes in legislation seeing as that's usually what people in such positions of power do. That's why you've got politicians spouting what bullshit reforms they'll make so they can get (money) elected.

 

[sida1049]

1. It's not the phrasing of the question, it's the action taken. If neither camp has the majority votes, NO action should be taken. Yes majority for SSM, results in an action. No majority for SSM, results in an omission to act. What I'm saying is that we can't use the converse because it is not an action. When you say 'the opposite must take place', you're creating a presumption that leaving marriage as it is, is an action - whereas law reform is the true action here.
As a result if not enough people voted to make a majority, the optional postal vote obviously wasn't the best way to address the issue.

I get what you mean, but you're mostly basing this on the difference between an action and inaction, and that's the problem I have with it. An inaction is an action, and there's no such thing as a "true action". Creating a bias in favour of status quo on the basis of a difference between an action and an inaction, which does not exist, is creating a bias out of nothing. If you want to claim that favouring a change is more difficult than favouring a non-change, then you need to find a valid reason for it. Your reason so far is invalid, because it leads to problems that are unsolvable.

2. BUT NON VOTERS DID NOT SEEK CHANGE. That's the whole point of what I'm saying here. If they didn't vote, they obviously didn't seek the change, because they didn't do anything for the change to happen. I am not saying that they opposed SSM, just saying they didn't necessarily want/not want it to happen.
We can't assume whether they were for 'yes' or 'no' - that's where I stand on this part.

3. I don't understand how we can end up inferring that the 20% would vote yes... the possible measurement error could go either side...

Points 2. and 3. are the same.

Firstly, the remaining 20% didn't necessarily not attempted to vote. Now...

I know that you don't understand statistical inference, and so do you, but your ignorance of it did not stop you from speaking on something that you don't yet understand. We can statistically infer that the regardless of how the 20% actually would have voted, the yes result a statistical certainty. We can go further and claim that with an overwhelming probability, the 20% would have voted yes in majority.

In fact, if I sample only a thousand voters and made little to no measure errors, and found that 60% of them voted yes, I can validly say that I am 99% confident that the true consensus of the 16 million voters is somewhere between 56.4% and 63.6%. Except we didn't have a thousand voters, we had 12.7 million. So even with claiming measurement errors, selection bias, and that we don't know about the last 20%, we can still conclude that the true proportion of the voting population who would vote yes is extremely close to 61.6%.

 

[dan964]

I'm not saying that my view should have weight in the public sphere when we're talking about homosexuals getting 'married' - which I think will basically be turning marriage into a civil union - but we've seen throughout the world, and with the attitude of the SSM supporters that a knock-on effect of religious rights to freedom being violated is something that occurs.

We were promised that we wouldn't be forced to do anything differently if SSM was legalised, and that SSM would not change our lives (but rather 'just those wanting to get married'), but when we make mention of amendments and protection of our rights to recognising religious marriage as a union between man and woman (within our own practises), we're told we are discriminating and people actively seek to take away our freedom of thought.

I wouldn't care if this wasn't the case.

are rights/entitlement the most important thing?

that is a bit different to what I am talking about.

i know but observing your interaction mainly seems to be on an argument about numbers.
you are trying to argue that majority did not vote in favour. the majority of those who voted, voted in favour. the latter is relevant because we do not know what the 20% would have done if they had voted.

 

[enoilgam]

First, Christian programs are never enforced on students, there's always the opt-out option.

You can opt out, but those who opt out cant go back to normal classes. Hence my issue.

to state again: the best Christian responses I have seen in response to the outcome, have been to accept the results of the survey, as indicative of what Australians want (more people want ssm than those opposed even if your argument holds which I don't think it does), and to spit the dummy and complain about vote rigging. It not very Christlike to complain when Christianity is not accepted by the majority (or close enough to majority) on a particular social issue.

I agree in principle, but that assumes all Christians are against gay marriage. Myself and many other Christians felt the right response was to vote yes. I have no issue with your view itself, but it isnt representative of all practicing Christians.

 

[Paradoxica]

You can opt out, but those who opt out cant go back to normal classes. Hence my issue.



I agree in principle, but that assumes all Christians are against gay marriage. Myself and many other Christians felt the right response was to vote yes. I have no issue with your view itself, but it isnt representative of most practicing Christians.

more accurate (even if the distribution of supporters is non-random, which it basically is, from the results, it can be deduced that at least half of the supporters are christian with a high level of confidence)

 

[enoilgam]

more accurate

It's a sizable percentage of Christians - I dont know if it is a majority. I read an article in the paper a few days back that said with the SSM debate over, the church should shift it's focus towards encouraging lasting relationships/marriages. I definitely think more needs to be done to turn around divorce rates and I think churches are perfectly positioned to lead the charge. It could definitely be a better use of their time and resources and maybe it could help them build their numbers, as opposed to chasing divisive issues which alienate their members.

 

[Paradoxica]

It's a sizable percentage of Christians - I dont know if it is a majority. I read an article in the paper a few days back that said with the SSM debate over, the church should shift it's focus towards encouraging lasting relationships/marriages. I definitely think more needs to be done to turn around divorce rates and I think churches are perfectly positioned to lead the charge. It could definitely be a better use of their time and resources and maybe it could help them build their numbers, as opposed to chasing divisive issues which alienate their members.

yeah, idk why they keep trying to push back, since it's really not helping their "member count" if that's something of importance to them

 

[cosmo 2]

i voted twice

 

[enoilgam]

yeah, idk why they keep trying to push back, since it's really not helping their "member count" if that's something of importance to them

At the end of the day, like it or not, member count is critical because Churches dont run on the Holy Spirit they run on money. That being said, I feel Christianity has so much to offer even modern society, so it constantly disappoints me to see them chase such divisive issues which are really not the most important overall (the big three are abortion, euthanasia and sexual ethics). There are far more important matters the church can address which are nowhere near as divisive. Unfortunately though, that big three continues to define them and as such society sees the church as divisive and untrustworthy (an Essential poll a few weeks back found that the Church has a 28% trust rating, which was the third lowest after the Unions and Political parties).

 

[dan964]

At the end of the day, like it or not, member count is critical because Churches dont run on the Holy Spirit they run on money. That being said, I feel Christianity has so much to offer even modern society, so it constantly disappoints me to see them chase such divisive issues which are really not the most important overall (the big three are abortion, euthanasia and sexual ethics). There are far more important matters the church can address which are nowhere near as divisive. Unfortunately though, that big three continues to define them and as such society sees the church as divisive and untrustworthy (an Essential poll a few weeks back found that the Church has a 28% trust rating, which was the third lowest after the Unions and Political parties).

Of the three, depending on which strand of Christianity you talk to. SSM and sexual ethics (even before SSM marriage was even a thing) have always been at odds, and the most controversial, since the sexual revolution of the 60s. It is not surprising for the church to buck those trends.

Most Christians while having strong opposition to those 3 issues, and I am somewhat glad they do stick with their convictions (especially on euthanasia). I think for instance with euthanasia in Australia, they put their money where their mouth is, in aiming to provide high quality pallative care (e.g. anglicare). Euthanasia and abortion are two sides of the same coin (comes out a belief in human dignity which extends to those in the womb).

The most important thing is the Gospel message to Christians about Jesus, bringing salvation to the world from sin. Social issues aren't our biggest fight/goal nor should they be.

 

[BLIT2014]

A 75% response rate is considered to be statistically valid for a return survey.

 

[BLIT2014]

"49m ago Reforms to commence from Saturday.
1h ago MARRIAGE EQUALITY PASSES
1h ago Final amendment voted down
1h ago 'This is Australia' – bill read for a third time.
3h ago Final amendment moved
3h ago Andrew Broad's second amendments are voted down
3h ago Andrew Broad's first amendments are voted down"

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...arriage-equality-citizenship-turnbull-shorten

 

[enoilgam]

Glad it's over to be honest.

 

[cosmo 2]

i know its over

 

[Graney]

Now we can finally talk about refugees and climate change

 

[Kolmias]

Get out of the 1950s bos1.

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