Marriage Equality in Australian Law

I appreciate the tireless work of my ALP comrade and Federal MP for Blair Shayne Neumann, but like in any family there are shades on the spectrum of opinion and identity born of lived experiences, and mine are in synch with Rainbow Labor.

Australia Day long weekend 1984
Two poms find each other in the Edinburgh Gardens ,
North Fitzroy, Melbourne with an ex-Labor, Richmond Mayor as civil celebrant.

15th century French manuscript(Brit.Lib)

I had assumed The Australian Constitution with it's secular principles would be the guide and foundation for which the  Marriage Act(1961) could be changed to include any consenting couple. Easy. No problem.

In a dubious argument my MP said in a speech to Parliament he didn't think our founding fathers would have considered framing  anything other than marriage between a man and a woman (subtext Adam and Eve). They didn't consider women's suffrage either, or indigenous autonomy.

Educate me why we still have a law that discriminates against homosexual couples based on the Genesis creation myth of patriarchal religion I learned at Sunday school.

Lovely story, and imaginative, but it has been  superseded by our scientific knowledge and evolution!                        

Dear House of Common Lawyers et al - revise your faith with the facts of Life: In the beginning Life begins as Female. Only after 7 weeks will a flush of hormones change a fetus to a Male. (Is this in the new National Curriculum?)

If only my MP was persuaded by the truth in his colleague's speeches: Labor Senators Penny Wong(SA), Doug Cameron(NSW), Claire Moore(QLD) and Jan McLucas(Qld).
transcripts at LGBTLAWblog

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is an enigma on this issue. She promised a conscience vote after the ALP National Conference when it was changing it's policy platform to support same-sex marriage, but stubbornly maintained the view of the status quo.

She knew how many MP's pray in parliament together and it would not pass. To keep in power herself,
Julia Gillard could prove to the Religious Conservatives in the Parliament and the electorate that even though she is an atheist, she is no threat - their world will not turn upside down with the State sanction of gay marriage?

Ben Eltham at New Matilda sees the irony in the fact that the numbers of MPs who voted against change to the Marriage Act is the same percentage in the polls who are fine with it! I wonder how many tight-lipped M.P's have been brought up to read 'The Holy Code' literally?
If you have been persuaded and/or believed from your family the Bible is the true Word of the God of Abraham, then I fear our Australian Parliament is imposing Religious doctrine on the wider public. It is Catechism by stealth, except for Senator Barnardi!

I think I know what Senator Barnardi was reading with his cornflakes: Leviticus 18:21-23

21  Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.
22  Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination.
23 Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

http://newmatilda.com/2012/09/20/bernardi-mounts-his-last-raid

So, our 21st century Secular legislature is being hijacked by patriarchal biblical based politicians who are  increasingly participating and networking via parliamentary prayer groups and the like. They have a harsh human rights record on refugees - Malcolm Frazer says its racism and now our supposedly fair go, knowledgeable, pollies with a purported egalitarian ethos are homophobic.

If their God is Love, they said No to homosexual love and comittment.
98 MP's and 41 Senators against

When they ought to know better about the separation between the State and Religion, we have fundamentalist Christian chaplains in State schools who no doubt if asked will say the Bible says homosexuality is deviant.

The Marriage Act(1961) as it stands is discriminatory - how come it bypasses all the Anti-discrimination laws? The Australian Constitution says we can be free of religion, so how come these MP's have the power to impose laws based on religion?

I have been an Australian Citizen since 1985 and assumed we live under a Secular rule of law.

In his maiden speech Blair MP Shayne Neumann said he was a Christian and knew the difference between Church and State, but then comes away from the recent Parliamentary Committee on Social Affairs saying he would vote against same-sex marriage because this would be against cultural customs and tradition.

Well, for a lawyer that's a crap argument.
Anybody knows that Marriage is a cultural construct and was mainly used for property and family bonds, with the husband being sure that his wife was having his babies and heirs. She could be assaulted, raped, have her children taken from her and have little access to divorce.
It wasn't until women achieved the vote did we start getting changes and amendments to the notion of how marriage could treat women better!

1967

I grew up learning you didn't have to conform - my mum was brought up to be a Roman Catholic and only saw oppression. She rebelled. Mum married a Protestant which made me a bastard in Canon Law! Whose the bastards?

Interracial unions were in the public conversation when I was growing up. The challenge to the Marriage legislation in the USA was whether you could marry someone of a different colour skin.

All the Prophets of calamity and divine punishment for changes to marriage laws were lame, like the fears over a carbon pollution tax!

So, it all comes down to heterosexual superiority, and ingrained homosexual hatred.
It's about picking and choosing from religious texts.

I am with you Senator Doug Cameron on every word you expressed at last weeks debate; another Leftie who has been happily married for years, and would wish the same for our gay comrades, kith and kin.

It seems to me that our elected representatives not only need to declare their financial assets for conflict of interests in dealing with legislation but also declare their active religious affiliation and beliefs, fair dinkum!