Undermining Howard on Same-Sex Marriage

Finally, John Howard's government is starting to turn on itself. Yesterday a Liberal (American readers, read "libertarian") senator, Gary Humphries voted against his own party to support gay marriage. Hurrah!

Actually, it doesn't mean much because there was Steve Fielding from the religious right Family First party to take his place. Sigh! People have finally come to realise that Howard has taken the party so far to the right that it doesn't deserve the name "Liberal" (even in the standard, non-American sense) but now they have the religious right bolstering them as a separate party.

Unsurprisingly, The Greens press-release is spot-on with my attitude; Kerry Nettle sounds as flabbergasted as me, "In the debate today the leader of the government in the Senate, Senator Minchin, failed to offer any reasonable explanation as to why the government was so determined to stop same sex couples from getting civil unions. The only explanation offered is that civil unions would 'undermine' marriage but they cannot explain how this would actually happen."

Yes, Kerry, exactly! How is it possible that merely knowing that there are two blokes living together next door can make you love your wife any less!? Homosexuality isn't illegal so it must be something about the two blokes next door having equal recognition in law that makes homophobes love their spouses less.

The other "argument" (not really an argument but sophistry) is that the institution needs to be defined. I'm yet to hear a good reason why the definition should be so narrow as to exclude same-sex couples. This just reminds me so much of the Catholic/Protestant divide that existed in Australia (and presumably many other multi-cultural countries) a few generations ago. Today we laugh at anecdotes of Catholic clergy telling Protestants that they were not really married (i.e. calling their children bastards) because they were not married in a Roman Catholic church! Just as most people no longer think of marriage as a religious sacrament and are happy to recognise civil unions as well as inter-denominational marriages, it will not be long before the accepted definition of marriage changes to accommodate many more couples.