So - what actually changes ?

Premier Lara Giddings is proposing that Tasmania be the first state to go it alone and make gay marriage legal.  If this legislation makes it through both houses of the Tasmanian parliament, it will still face the hurdle of intervention from Canberra.   That will depend on whether  Prime Minister Julia Gillard launches a challenge in the High Court on the basis that  this legislation conflicts with Commonwealth law.

The " Gay Marriage " issue has become a moral battleground world wide.  The strange part is that all the fuss is over just one simple word - and that word is " marriage ".   There are plenty of laws in place that recognise a union between two same sex people under various descriptions, but the sticking point is the desire to have the union officially appended as a " marriage ".

That gets all the churches thumping the " sin " drums and it seems to offend many of the older generation who were brought up to expect the rite of passage that precedes the bearing of children to include a ceremony in a church in which the woman wears a stunning white gown.   We now live in a different age.   Fewer formal marriages take place in churches and many are performed by a " celebrant " who holds no religious office.

Vast numbers of people now dodge the marriage ceremony completely, and this is perfectly legal.   You do not need a marriage license to bring children into this world and when all is said and done - if gay people are given the right to call their union a marriage - what actually changes ?

Tasmania is probably being courageous in taking the lead and dragging this issue - kicking and screaming - into legislative action.  It is inevitable that it will have to be faced sooner or later, and our smallest state had a strange history of trying to adjust to the " gay " era.    It was the last state to retain laws that made male homosexuality a criminal offence on it's law books, and only repealed that legislation in 1997, and yet during that same period it repeatedly renewed the term of office of an openly gay Tasmanian Senator to the national parliament.

If this marriage legislation gets the vote in the Tasmanian parliament and survives a repeal from Canberra - in a short space of time " marriage " will be an unremarkable term applied to the union of people - without regard to their sexuality.