Anyone for tennis?

Mr Drewitt-Barlow said: "The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church. "It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognise us."

It is a a shame because this homosexual couple could easily find a church and a minister that would perform the marriage ceremony for them, but what they want is to compel churches that do not accept homosexual "marriage" to violate their religious beliefs. Mr. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said "It upsets me because I want it so much – a big lavish ceremony, the whole works… As much as people are saying this is a good thing I am still not getting what I want."

In Australia the marriage-equality movement has said churches would be exempt, but churches are comprised of individual Christians. What about their rights to religious freedom?

Here are just some of the headlines from US states which have legalised homosexual marriage:

"Business owners threatened, face legal action for refusing to rent facility for gay 'wedding': A Christian couple in Iowa is facing a state complaint, business cancellations, and vulgar, harassing, and threatening e-mail messages after refusing to rent out a business facility for a gay 'wedding'.'

Dick and Betty Odgaard said they could not in good conscience allow a homosexual couple to use their business, the Görtz Haus Gallery, to conduct the ceremony itself.

"To us, [marriage] is a sacrament," Betty Odgaard said, "that exists only between a man and a woman."

She told Billy Hallowell of The Blaze their rejection was a totally a faith-based issue, adding the couple would be happy to serve the homosexuals in any other way, apart from being the site on which they traded vows.

The homosexual couple quickly filed a legal complaint before the Iowa Human Rights Commission, saying that state law forbids any public venue from denying the use of its premises on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Odgaards have suffered financial loss as well as frightening emails. They are not the only ones to suffer intolerance at the hands of those demanding tolerance for their lifestyle choices.

• Last year, a judge ruled that a New Jersey retreat house affiliated with the United Methodist Church could not refuse its services for a gay "marriage."
• Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson pressed charges against elderly Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman after she refused to sell flowers for a gay"marriage" in March.
• Christian photographers Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin were convicted of violating the New Mexico Human Rights Act after they declined to photograph a same-sex "commitment" ceremony.

I am sure that all the loving homosexual couples who want to get married could find churches, ministers, venues, florists, photographers, the "butcher, the baker and candlestick maker" who would be happy to accommodate their ceremonies, but their naked ambition is to bully everyone to conform and to confirm approval of the homosexual lifestyle and homosexual "marriage".

And then there is the illogical response of the LGBT movement to "reparative therapy", i.e. the counselling provided by professionals to those with a homosexual orientation who wish to change to heterosexual.

While on the one hand the LGBT movement - which has now morphed into LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender-transexual, intersex, queer) insists that human beings are not simply divided into male/female or homosexual/heterosexual but that we are all on a continuum and can move from one sex or one orientation to another, they vehemently oppose counselling for homosexuals who want to change their orientation to heterosexual.

Penny Wong, Bishop Gene Robinson and Tony Abbott's sister were formerly in heterosexual relationships - the latter two also had children with their heterosexual spouses - why should they not be given the option of going back - or "moving forward", the favourite slogan of the ALP?

The law in Boulder, Colorado, is reasonably tolerant in this regard: a law has been passed extending legal protection to transsexuals (known as'gender-variants') so that they will not be discriminated against in housing, public accommodations or employment. Transsexuals may have full access to public bathrooms which serve the sex of their choice.

At work, employees can change gender identity and dress as the opposite sex without fear of being fired -- but only three times within every year-and-a-half. After that, their employer is permitted to fire them on the grounds of 'gender  inconsistency.'

Despite the leeway laws such as in Colorado allow me, I won't be changing gender. I think I will stick to tennis.