The multi-coloured flag was flying above the station last Thursday.  At the same time, a billboard outside stated the word “yes”.  Normally, the board gives advice on fire safety rather than suggesting how to vote in the controversial debate.

A day later the flag and slogan were gone.  It’s understood that senior officers took exception to the station’s stance and the Professional Standards and Conduct Unit of Fire & Rescue NSW became involved.

A spokeswoman for the service’s headquarters in Sydney said simply:  “Fire & Rescue NSW will not be commenting.”

But the flag raising generated an intense but polite debate.  On Facebook, support for the fire station was strong though some said the organisation should not take a public stance.

What was a private debate withinorganisation has now come out into the open.  One person has now put her own large rainbow banner up directly opposite Holy Trinity Anglican church on Meade Street.

Nola Taylor became irritated  when she heard that the church was against gay marriage.

She has attached a row of bells to her banner as symbolic competition with the church bells – though her bells are barely audible beyond her garden.

The Bishop of Armidale (in whose diocese Holy Trinity lies) sent a letter to his flock saying:  “I will, of course, be voting ‘No’ to Same Sex Marriage”.

He told the Examiner that the Bible presented marriage as between a man and a woman, and this was a consistent theme from the Book of Genesis through to the Gospels.  

The Right Reverend Rick Lewers said:  “Christian Anglicans hold to the teaching of Jesus Christ who in Matthew 19 said ‘…that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, ‘for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh’.”