Janet Albrechtsen (“No short cuts to gay marriage”, The Australian, 3/4) seems so uncomfortable admitting that the Left has been right on gay marriage all along, that she devotes most of her column to impugning their motives: they hold their views to “establish their hip credentials” or “moral superiority”, or as “absolution for sins”, and they work to achieve it the “wrong way”, which apparently includes anything aimed at actually legalising it.

In contrast, pro-gay marriage conservatives hold their views for the “right” reasons, like the Republican senator who had a sudden attack of empathy when his son came out. And they work towards it the “right” way, which apparently involves waiting until everyone who objects to it dies of old age.

This feat of mind-reading is impressive but irrelevant and over-complicated. The issue is simple: gay couples cannot be legally married; thus they are denied a legal right because they are gay. That is discrimination by definition. Albrechtsen’s confusion about that key point is demonstrated by this hedge: “Gay couples enjoy the same substantive rights as heterosexual couples. If they don’t they should.” She got it right with the second sentence.

The Australian’s editorial (“Exercising a democratic right”, 27/7) defends Chris Bowen’s intention to vote against marriage equality, on the grounds that MPs should always vote according to majority opinion in their local electorates. This is disingenuously naive: they must also consider the broad national view, their party’s policy, informed opinion, and their own knowledge and belief. Should Southern U.S. Congress members have voted against repealing race laws simply because most of their constituents were rednecks? Sometimes leaders should lead.

Brendan O’Neill (“Silence of the illiberal lambs”, The Australian, 5/10) brings us the shocking news that “Christians who oppose gay marriage are accused of ‘homophobia’”. What next? Will white supremacists who oppose interracial marriage be accused of “racism”?

On gay marriage, The Australian employs its favored two-pronged strategy: feigning neutrality in editorials, but lets its right-wing catholic cohort do the dirtywork. Some examples:

Like many in the anti gay marriage lobby, David van Gend (“A dad does matter to a child, whether gay couples like it or not”, 29/8) is unwilling to “come out” as anti-gay, but paints himself into a corner by trying to equate marriage with reproduction. Such arguments will always fail because they apply equally to childless or adoptive heterosexual couples. Angela Shanahan is a serial offender in this regard.

“A bigot is someone who refuses to see the other point of view” says Van Gend, a doctor who is still looking for causes and cures for homosexuality. If he is uncomfortable with that label, he should rethink his denial of people’s civil equality because of who they are.

Arguments were frequently made last century against interracial marriage, which, like Alice Woolven’s against gay marriage (Letters, 27/8), hid behind concern for the well-being of the children. But if Woolven had bothered to look at actual studies of same-sex parenting instead of irrelevant data about dysfunctional heterosexual families, she would know that those children do as well as any others.

Christopher Pearson errs by equating a change in tradition with relativism (“Vote against gay marriage”, 26/8). Traditions are not the same thing as absolute values; in fact, they may even stand opposed. Changing the tradition of marriage to include same-sex couples extends the universal value of equality before the law, just as it did when sanctions against mixed-race marriages were lifted. Not all traditions “persist for good reasons”.

When Bob Katter or others on the Right spout hateful anti-gay invective and are criticised for doing so, The Australian defends the invective as an expression of free speech, but condemns the criticism as suppression of it (“Same-sex marriage debate must not be shut down”, 26/8). Either they don’t understand what free speech means, or they can dish it but not take it.

“Opposing the idea of gay marriage does not make a person a homophobe”, says Angela Shanahan (“Cheap emotionalism stymies debate”, The Australian, 24/7). Let’s exchange the word “gay” for “interracial”, and “homophobe” for “racist” – as others have done in the past – and see if that sentence still makes sense.

Shanahan’s arguments from “common sense”, “nature” and “fundamental and bedrock values” are the same meaningless generalities used by opponents of marriage between couples of different races, and indeed religions, to justify their prejudice.

We live in a democracy, so Shanahan is entitled to her religious beliefs; but we don’t live in a theocracy, so they have no place in law.

Angela Shanahan (“Politicians’ dubious moral compass risks our freedom”, The Australian, 9/7) promotes a number of falsehoods, most insidiously that “[c]hildren will suffer…within a same-sex relationship”. Research consistently shows this is not the case, despite the unsubstantiated assertions of academic Margaret Somerville.

It is also false that “[m]arriage exists…only to protect the children born of the union”. Childless couples, adoptive and step-parents may all marry, as long as they are straight.

Warnings that legal gay marriage will infringe “rights” to criticise and shun homosexuals are risible: the legality of, say, prostitution has no bearing on whether one is allowed to discuss its morality or required to socialise with its practitioners.

Far from being a “contentious” debate which “the Greens are forcing on us”, Australians overwhelmingly support gay marriage. Shanahan is clutching at straws in her attempts to dress up her anti-gay agenda as something more noble.

Frank Furedi’s attempt to paint gay marriage support as defining “cosmopolitan cultural elites” (“Where gay matrimony meets elite sanctimony”, The Australian, 25/6) fails for the simple reason that it is a view held by the majority of Australians, making it the only mainstream value rejected by both major parties.

Furedi’s argument is of a familiar fallacious pattern: take an issue with feisty antagonists, and pillory one side only for its feistiness, while feigning neutrality on the issue itself. The fact that he (presumably) would not take this position if the question were, say, the abolition of slavery, betrays his assessment of gay marriage as unimportant at best.

Whether the Territories should have legislative parity with the States should obviously be decided on its merits, not on speculation about what decisions they may make if it comes to pass (such as potentially approving gay marriage). Unfortunately The Australian has chosen to add to this widespread confusion (“Canberra should not cede power to territories”, 3/3).

Worse, they opine that because voters’ views in the A.C.T “do not always coincide with those of the wider Australian community”, they should not be able to legislate for their own constituency. By the same reasoning, rural voters should not be allowed to vote for National Party candidates. In fact, why not go the whole hog and outlaw minor parties altogether?

This self-contradictory, “you can have democracy as long as you agree with me” attitude reflects the fact that small-L liberals and social conservatives, who both fly the conservative banner, actually have nothing in common at all.