GayMarriage

28th May 2015

By Andrew Bolt




Relax. The public is already open to the change. In 2004, Newspoll showed only one-third of Australians backed same-sex marriage. In 2014, it was twice as many and I suspect support has grown since.

Even Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a committed Catholic, has admitted that “inside the Abbott family I’m probably the last holdout for the traditional position”. His own much-loved sister Christine is married to a woman.

I’ve also been a sceptic, despite not being Christian and also having a sister and good friends in same-sex marriages. Moreover, the Yes vote in Catholic Ireland last week broke the back of any real resistance here, too.

It wasn’t just that Ireland brings to 19 the countries that have legalised same-sex marriage (although 177 countries haven’t). It was that this change was made by a vote of the people, a full two-thirds of whom said yes. Then there was the partying.

That, of course, does not prove we should do the same here. But Ireland did show how the change could be made in a way that inspires, not divides. And that is important for two reasons.

The first is because same-sex marriage is sold as the last step to accepting gays and lesbians as equals.

In truth, gays and lesbians can form legally binding relationships identical to marriage, without actually being counted as one.

But as Shorten argued, we should now change this definition that allegedly tells gays and lesbians “your love is less equal under the law”.

But how best to embrace that love? Is it with Shorten’s sneaky Bill, trying to steal credit from existing attempts by the Greens and Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm?

Is it with this Bill, seemingly designed to shore up Shorten’s leadership before Labor’s national conference? With a Bill to try to split the Liberals, who were working their way to agreement?

No, this must be above such squalid tricks. If this profound change must be made, let it be in a way that embraces gays and lesbians into the Australian family and not by kicking conservatives out.

If this really is about love, let’s see it.

For me, a vote of the people, not the politicians, seems the best way of showing the acceptance that same sex-marriage campaigners say they really want.

Or let us at least have a political consensus. But there is a second reason for advocates to take a breath before this final push.

They must realise the awesome responsibility they’ll soon share — the defence of our most important tradition: keeping parents together for the sake of their children.

They are about to change the definition of marriage and must now down their weapons and treat conservative warnings with respect, not with mockery and contempt.

Yes, most Australians think same-sex marriage will bring much good, but no one can be sure it will come at no cost.

History is a warning. For centuries marriage was between a man and a woman, until death did them part. We eventually ditched that death part and then brought in no-fault divorce.

That change also brought good — a second chance of happiness for loveless couples, for instance — but also harm. A million Australian children now don’t have one of their parents live with them and a third of those live in poverty.

For many parents, caring for their own children has become an option as disposable as their marriage.

Same-sex marriage also comes with risks. First, it is likely to further weaken the glue of marriage by making its form and obligations — to commit for life, be faithful — seem just optional dishes in a serve-yourself smorgasbord.

We can soon have marriages that are straight or gay, faithful or “open”, for life or for the moment.

What exactly is the power now of the word “marriage”? The word must regain weight. Awe. For the sake of the children.

But the advocates risk changing not just the definition of “marriage” but the obligations that help make marriages stick.

For instance, gay culture is far more tolerant of promiscuity, as Americans David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison, themselves gay, found in a survey for their book The Male Couple.

Of 156 gay couples interviewed, most had intended to be faithful, but only seven still were. Concluded the authors: “Many couples learn very early in their relationship that ownership of each other sexually can become the greatest internal threat to their staying together.”

In Victoria, Associate Professor Paula Gerber, co-author of Jack & Jill or Jack & Bill: The Case for Same-Sex Adoption, said the “highly regarded” National Lesbian Longitudinal Family Study found more than half the lesbian couples with children it surveyed had separated by the end of the study — almost double the rate for married heterosexual couples with children the same age.

Recognising this, prominent same-sex marriage advocates have argued that the rules of marriage should change. In his book Virtually Normal, Andrew Sullivan explained how gay marriage could change the meaning of marriage for everybody.

“There is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman.”

Sullivan later changed his mind, but other gay custodians of this new form of marriage must also become more conservative.

FOR a start. the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, that raucous celebration of random sex, cannot stay the iconic symbol of gay culture.

You want to own the marriage tradition? Then own its responsibilities, too. Join us in insisting on them.

And there’s another battle the new owners of marriage must now help fight.

Yes, they’ve won the argument that two adults may marry whomever they choose. But what will they now say to three adults wanting that right? To four?

Samuel Alito, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, asked just that last month, asking us to imagine “four people ... all consenting adults, highly educated ... What would be the logic of denying them the same right?”.

Let’s get specific. What would same-sex marriage advocates say to Sheik Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre, or Keysar Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association, who want polygamy allowed for Muslims.

Saying yes to same-sex marriage does not mean ending an argument.

It means opening new ones, with the survival of marriage at stake.

Are the new inheritors of the marriage tradition up to the awesome responsibility of defending the institution they are about to change?

Show us now. Join us, with love.