Oh - I see! There is a way to comment on editorials, if you want to repost your comment, or for future reference. Go to the bottom of this (or any) page and click on 'Conniptions' (under heading 'Sections and Blogs'.) You will see the editorial there and if you click on the title you will be able to comment. Sue

Neetchah, you appear to have posted to the wrong article. SAB

Well, it's coming up to 3 pm in the City of Conjugality (for some who have bravely followed the many threads on this article, it may feel like 3 am), so it's time to close shop. I will do this shortly. But first...

Sue has rightly noted that we have gone off on a religious tangent here, party due to one of the usual suspects who wears the hat of moderator with a quirky taste for mud pits. My wife reminds me I tend to go off on a religious tangent among friends too and I reckon a suitable penance is to "pull my thumb out of my bum", put my third hat on and spend more time looking after the business aspects of being a beacon of reason in an ocean of hype and unreason.

Speaking of which, many of you would have received an email on the first of our two fund raising appeals for the year. In case you overlooked it as one of the impersonal messages flooding our inboxes (or worse still, in case your email client sent it to your spam folder) please consider being a part of our mission for the cause of human dignity in a tangible way, via this link: http://www.mercatornet.com/supportus

Help us to stay independent of commercial, political and other vested interests. Some folks may see us as beholden to religious interests but we remain focussed on objective commentary and analysis while making no attempt to hide the fact that our perspective is coloured by our faith. This is no less true of everyone else in the public space – including those for whom the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth.

Gracias!
Tim Lee

Good question, Jazcat. The trial is meant to pick up and find a solution or workaround for errors like these before we apply the change to our other sites.

Cheers!
Tim Lee

Nearly time to close the bar on this article, folks! Thanks for your contributions.

One point needs a bit of clarification, as very many threads here and elsewhere seem to go off on a religious tangent (I'm also prone to jump in whenever I judge that my religion is being misrepresented!) But in fact nearly all the articles on MercatorNet, including this one, are about issues that are HUMAN, not religious. Admittedly religious beliefs help to shape people's views on these issues, but the reasons most people oppose (say) abortion or same sex marriage are more fundamental. This is evident from the fact that many of these people are in fact not religious at all, an obvious example being Brendan O'Neill, who has criticized SSM primarily because it enables the State to exert greater control over the private lives of citizens. And many non-religious people oppose abortion on the grounds that it, well, involves murder. There are many more profitable topics for discussion than slanging matches between believers and non-believers. Do you agree? (Though it is appropriate here to commend Mal for his calm apologetics, and Radical nonChristian for a genuine attempt at dialogue!)

All the best,
Sue AB

Thanks, Jazcat. This may have something to do with our trialling of alternative software for curating of comments on the Careful blog. We will investigate this further. Apologies if some threads have been lost because of this. As a precaution, it's a good idea to keep a copy of comments we submit. I save all my comments in a document in which I can search for keywords to recap what I have previously written.

Cheers!
Tim Lee

Quite right, RnC, this is not a 'Christian' site, even if many of its readers and contributors are Christian. (Even less is it a 'right wing' site, as some commenters have suggested in the past!) It is a site for everyone who cares about issues which affect human dignity. Sue AB

We have seen sincere efforts to engage meaningfully on the part of some new faces as well as our usual suspects (I count myself among the opinionated recalcitrants drawn to the occasional mud pit tumble) and have let the threads run on longer than usual. It's now past 3.30 pm in the City of Conjugality (as in, we now have more than 330 comments on this article) and the sun is setting on a crisp autumn day. We will close the shutters sometime tomorrow morning Sydney time. If you have more stuff to sell, you may do it on another counter, eg Carolyn's piece on the marriage equality mess.

Cheers!
Tim Lee

Point taken, David. We gave Dania the benefit of the doubt, reading her double-entendre in the context of that Aussie gem "pull your thumb out of your bum" – which I interpret as "stop talking and start doing what you need to do."

Dania, I think David's point is that you tend to fly off the handle and lose coherence. Some of your recent posts are quite articulate and informative, and it would be a pity if you allow your temper to cloud your view and contribution. And this applies to all of us.

While on the subject, I should give due credit to David and Bent for presenting their passionate perspectives with a twinkle in the eye. As Sue noted in her recent closing-the-bar comment, "I think we all want the same thing... we just disagree on how to get there".

Cheers!
Tim Lee

Very interesting, Sheila. Looking at some of his other reviews on amazon.com, I recognised material that has been used to comment elsewhere on MercatorNet too. Best, Sue