The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
Dum dum de dum: Labor marries the religious right
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This Thursday August 13th, hundreds of fundamentalist, evangelical and Pentecostal Christians will gather in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra, for a celebratory breakfast. No, it won’t be to honour Fidel Castro’s birthday. Rather, it’s to mark the fifth anniversary of the Howard government’s ban on same-sex marriage. Here the religious right are gathering to stare down the ALP from their bully pulpit and to warn it against changing the Federal Marriage Act in favour of gay couples, or even, heaven forbid, allow for a modest national scheme for civil unions. While the recent ALP National Conference showed that Rudd Labor is just as anti-gay as Howard was on this question (much to the profound disappoint of the human rights community), the Christian Right are clearly unsettled by the wave of same-sex marriages around the civilised world, along with recent Galaxy polling showing that up to 60 per cent of Australians support same-sex marriages. This support is stronger among Labor and Greens voters, and stronger still with the next generation of younger voters. The celebratory “National Marriage Breakfast” is the soft cuddly face of the Religious Right, who continue to insist that they are not anti-homosexual, merely “pro-family”. Just what that means for gay couples raising children is unclear. However, there is no question that this gathering represents the biggest anti-gay protest in the five years since the gay marriage ban was implemented. Every gay-bashing, homophobic hate group will be represented in one way or another. The event has even been nick-named the “Muehlenberg Rally”, in recognition of serial homophobe Bill Muehlenberg from Victoria’s Australian Family Association being a key advocate for the event. Bill is very fond of using “research” from anti-gay groups in the USA to show that homos-xuals are diseased, depraved, irresponsible and promiscuous. According to Bill’s latest missive, “Leftist political parties, trendy social engineers, a sympathetic mainstream media, and militant homosexual activists are all ranting about the need for same-sex marriage”. At the original anti-gay rally in the Great Hall in 2004, speaker after speaker used the podium to denounce homosexuals and same-sex relationships. Various speakers referred to gay and lesbian people as “shameful and vile”, as “moral terrorists” and claimed that children being raised by same-sex couples suffered from “shame and guilt”. Speakers included Pastor Margaret Court from WA, who once excelled at tennis but who these days excels at homophobia. Her neurosis with this topic blew up some years ago when she launched a unseemly scathing character assassination on lesbian Wimbledon champion, Martina Navratilova. Also at the breakfast will be Melbourne’s answer to Jim and Tammy Bakker, the delightful “Salt Shakers” duo. This self-proclaimed organisation for “Christian Ethics in Action”, is deeply concerned that Harry Potter books lead to Satanism, that the gay community in NSW inflates attendance numbers at the Mardi Gras as part of a sinister political plot, and that same-sex marriages will destroy society as we know it. Maj-Gen “Digger” James was also a notable speaker at the anti-gay forum in 2004. Perhaps sensing the cameras were on him, he was quite restrained. But his record on this topic is appalling. In 2001 he addressed an anti-gay rally in Perth where he tried to scare the bejesus out of people with reference to an outdated, highly questionable piece of “research” that apparently showed that AIDS infected faeces was passed from dirty gay waiters in San Francisco to unsuspecting diners in the restaurants of the bayside city. Charming. Speaking of highly questionable research, the anti-gay rally is also being used to try and rehabilitate the discredited Warwick Marsh. Readers might recall how he was dumped from Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon’s “Men’s Health Advisory Committee” when his deep involvement with the anti-gay movement became known to a very, very badly informed Minister. Warwick is fond of research from US anti-gay groups that reports to show that gays are responsible for every conceivable disease, social ill and criminal character on the planet — and that’s clearly a fact. Warwick has kept a low profile since being outed as Australia’s smuggler for US religio-bigot-politics, but will be back again on Thursday to help launch his re-worked “26 Reasons Why Marriage Matters.” Oddly enough, all 26 reasons fail to explain in any way why same-sex couples shouldn’t also be able to enjoy the rights and benefits of marriage. But here’s the best bit. As the Religious Right gather in Parliament to spook Labor into submission, to demand that homosexuals are kept in their place and to insist that same-sex couples are expressly excluded from the basic right to civil marriage — which Federal Labor MP will greet the crowd and offer support? That’s right, it’s none other than Senator Ursula Stephens, the Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion. |
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23 Comments
Will there be any libs there?
Send Wong along… I’m sure she’d appreciate the sentiments of those in attendance.
There’s a problem with people who seek to call their relationship “marriage” when they cannot satisfy one of the key requirements that indicates marriage. The homosexual or lesbian couple by definition - not some accident of nature - are intrinsically necessarily physically infertile. They are quite unable to bring life into the world. They are sterile.
This situation is indeed sad.
Marriage is between a man and a woman who are open to life. Gays are not.
Wow Martin. Nice way to define ‘marriage’ as being all about procreation. I take it you don’t include heterosexual couples unable to have children in your definition of ‘marriage’, then.
As for Ursula Stephens turning up to hang out with the God-botherers, that’s what you get when you’ve got a conservative Bible-basher for a PM.
Separation of church and state? Anti-discrimination laws?? Inciting to hatred???
Why and how are these people allowed to meet in Parliament House??????
We give these people tax money to “educate” children, we give them money to “care” for old people, we give them money to “deal with” people on drugs, we allow these people tax concessions, the media quotes their bishops/pastors/ministers/shuysters/hucksters; and then, because the secular state can’t be seen to discriminate we provide the same support to every other group of self-deluded, and dangerous group of god-botherers.
Separation of church and state? BRING IT ON.
They people are disgusting hypocrites. Why aren’t there demands to have the churches come out and condemn them in the same way the Islamic community are asked to condemn alleged terrorists?
Here we go the homo phobic wowsers come out of their holes, waving their bibles and preaching crap.Martin Shanahan represents the cranks in the religious right who would drag us back to the days of the inquisition. I can just see the fool, standing on his soapbox declaring eternal damnation for gays in ine breath and in the next, but I dont really dislike gays, some of my best friends are gay. What did you play with in the dark of night Shanahan? Bet it wasnt rosary beads. Your type are vomit material.
Ah, here we go again. For the charming Mr Shanahan, and anyone else who hasn’t been paying attention, here is a summary of all the arguments against gay marraige:
1. ‘Gays can’t get married because they can’t have children’
Ah, sorry, this is WRONG (on two counts).
(a) Actually, gays can, and do have children, and plenty of gay couples are raising children, right here in your suburb. [I know! Shocking, isn’t it??]
(b) Unless infertile, post-menopausal and child-averse straight people are also banned from marrying, this one doesn’t make much sense.
2. ‘Gays can’t get married because they SHOULDN’T have children’
Also WRONG: All reputable studies show that it is the quality of parenting, and not the gender, which counts.
3. ‘Gays shouldn’t get married because God says so’
WRONG: Marriage is a civil, not religious contract. No-one is trying to force churches to marry gays. It works perfectly well in Europe, get over it.
4. ‘Gays can’t get married because marriage has always been between a man and a woman and you just can’t change language’
WRONG again. Marriage has had various definitions and purposes over the years. It used to be a contract between the parents. It used to be between people of the same race only. Meanings change.
5. ‘Gays can’t get married because I just don’t like it.’
WRONG (you’re not doing too well here, are you?) My right to marry has nothing to do with your right not to be offended. Some people don’t like the fact that women now have equal rights with men, or black people get to travel at the front of the bus. Tough. My human rights are not dependent on your comfort level.
6. ‘Gays can’t get married because then people would marry children, or pets’
Wow, STILL wrong! Marriage is a voluntary contract between two consenting adults. When your dog can sign his name, get back to me.
7. ‘Gays can’t get married because it would detract from the sanctity of marriage’
You guessed it …WRONG. Straights did that all by themselves long ago. (Britney, anyone?) Allowing more people to commit to lifelong, loving monogamous marriages will ENHANCE the sanctity of the institution, not diminish it.
8. ‘Gays can’t get married because they can have civil unions and there needs to be a difference between straight and gay couples.’
Could it be … yes! This one’s WRONG too! That’s pointless apartheid. It creates two classes of citizens for no good reason, and does nothing but legally entrench prejudice & discrimination.
9. “Gays can’t get married because some gays don’t want to get married”
Um, that’s so WRONG it’s not even an argument. Some straights don’t want to get married either. Some feminists oppose the entire patriarchal institution. Is that any reason to deny the choice to those who DO want to get married?
10.
Hello?
What, nothing else? You have no other arguments? Well, get on with changing the law then.
You little ripper Kate, go you good thing.
KATE - I agree with all that you’ve said above. And all others except for Martin! Wow! I wonder what century these hateful bastards will stop being such hypocrites. I’m not a gay person, but by hell I get really angry at the hatred these so-called christians spray about. I’ve met and been friends with many women in my life, straight and gay; sadly too many have been abused in some way; none of those sexually abused were the victims of gays - none! I know of many who are raising their kids in a healthy and loving relationship, straight or gay. I object to the revolting insinuations that gay men abuse kids. The stats point out, that sadly, those(overwhelming majority) who sexually or physically abuse kids are the fathers(straight) grandfathers(straight) a family friend, neighbour etc - yep! all straight! Am I silly enough to state that gay people never abuse kids or their partners, of course not! But I object to the revolting homophobic lies peddled by these haters, that state or insinuate, that the majority(all?) gays are too dangerous to have around kids, or women, or just about anyone else for that matter. Of course, they don’t have the guts to name people, because then that person could take legal action. No, like all bullies, they make sweeping statements that just cause too many people unnecessary pain and anguish.
I suppose we can look forward to seeing that Archbishop ??(who’s been reported as using horrible language against a woman who’d been sexually abused by a priest) at their little hate fest. What a charming god fearing individual he is. What about all the priests in too many countries, in too many cities and towns, who sexually abused kids - too many of them for too long, and left suicide victims and destroyed people in their wake! What about their sexuality, Martin? God fearing hetrosexuals I suppose? They just used ‘poor judgement’? Right!
As for having this hateful and revolting ‘celebration’ at Parliament House? What an abberation that is. I helped pay for that building, and yet we weren’t asked for our opinion. I have no problem with anyone getting married, regardless of their sexual preference or the colour of their eyes for that matter! If a woman has had a tubal ligation, is she prohibited from the right to marry or remarry? Unable to produce, automatically disqualified from marrying? Had a hysterectomy as a result of ovarian cancer etc? Is she doomed to not be eligible to be married? What a lot of nonsense!
The rise of the Religious Right in any faith is a worry. The deluded followers of the prosperity gospel and Old Testament Bible life-rules are an anachronism, but they won’t go away. In fact they seem to be blossoming. The response to the ‘Christian Army’ at the gates will be a test of Labor’s liberal credentials. As will the said ‘Army’s’ behaviour tell us how much tolerance they have learnt from the Prince of Peace.
I am apposed to the religious right whether Christian, Moslem or Hebrew. I don’t think much of the institution of marriage either and would prefer my marriage be more akin to the law of partnership. I know who I am: and I have never been homophobic. Taking all things into consideration, what are the present disadvantages to same sex couples? I think the only impediment would be that they would be low on the priorites of adoption agencies. The word “marriage” has a specific meaning though many heterosexuals feel it is a quaint term and prefer words like “life partner”
Under Australian law a married couple aren’t taxed as a unit (unlike the USA option). It likely that the pooling if income and so both getting into a lower tax bracket would be the aim of many USA gays. Had I been able to pool my income with my wife we would have been better off financially - as it is the wifely tax deduction pitiful. Now tha we are past retirement age we are penalised on pension income and would be far better of if we were like many grey nomads a obtained single pensions. So far as I am aware an elderly gay couple would not be penalised on their pension because they co-habitted. I envy them this opportunity. I understand they now have the same rights a a heterosexual for superannuation and powers of attourney, next of kin etc - so what is so special about marriage
Lazarus
Good post Kate.
I want to pick up on reason 5: ‘Gays can’t get married because I just don’t like it.’
There are people who dislike marriages between people of different races. There are people who dislike marriages between people of different religions.
There are two people in the average marriage, plus their deity/ies of choice. I don’t know why people like Martin have a problem with that.
Reproduction is often mentioned, but it doesn’t ring true. I don’t believe that the people make that argument are motivated by it - they don’t seem concerned by other types of childless marriage. And denying gays the right to marry doesn’t change the number of children they do or don’t have together.
The argument against gay marriage that seems to be most common is that having gay marriage as a legitimate choice somehow undermines the attractiveness of a straight marriage. That argument does generally seem to be made with real conviction.
Martin, if you’re reading, would be interested to hear your comments from the heart. I feel that you feel personally threatened by the existence of gay marriage?
Now after reading that absurd bible waving, wank Shanahan’s contibution again, I am more furious. I will be mailing the PM, Dep PM, Ms Wong, Bob Brown, Abbott (a closet something), Pyne (another something) and the Speaker of the House pointing to my total objection of Parliament Buildings being used for a right wing religious, anti gay Christ speak. If that is the name of the game then I will be encouraging the Australian gay community to apply for a date to have a similar get together in the same hall. Let them dare say no. I am bloody angry!!!!!!!! Rudd should not push the 8 ball too hard, he is beginning to be a smart arse. His and his Govts tactics in question time today didn’t fool anyone, I will not dwell on what they were up to, but it was not nice. Sanctimonious as a tactic in the time of tragedy stinks and he has the front to condone a religious freak in in the House of the people. He should be very careful, he is mixing with strange bed fellows
I’m more than a little pissed off with Labor playing footsie with the religious right. We have a secular democracy and it should stay that way. Senator Fielding, representing an extreme religious group, warms a seat in the Senate due to Labor preferences and has not voted with Labor on any important issue. Does no one in the Labor Party remember the destruction of the DLP?
Kevin Rudd is going to give the keynote address to Australian Christian Lobby conference in November http://www.acl.org.au/national/browse.stw?article_id=28324
As far as I can find out, the ACL exist for no other reason than to lobby governments, government agencies and individual politicians about their extreme religious views and they have successfully influenced social policies such as the repressive censorship regime Australia has and the planned internet censorship. This organisation does not publish membership lists, donor lists, sponsor lists or financial reports. There is at least one Liberal Senator that is a member of the ACL and possibly other Senators. It acts entirely in secret in its lobbying activities. WTF is the Prime Minister of the whole country doing giving these extremists airtime.
There are more than 16 million Australians that aren’t part of these small religious groups and cults. The majority of these people probably don’t agree with their rigid, narrow agenda.
No religious group or charity is required to be register as lobbyists and none of their lobbying activity is open to public scrutiny of any kind. http://lobbyists.pmc.gov.au/lobbyistsregister/index.cfm?event=whoNeedsToRegister
But religious groups are the recipients of significant government funding and grants and many charities, both religious and non religious, are tendering competitively against corporations. Corporate lobbyists are required to register but these guys are not?
I’m bloody tired of Kevin Rudd church doorstep grabs in the news almost every Sunday night. Religiosity and politics is bad mix. Australians are entitled to their personal religious views but I find my self cringing at the constant pandering to these groups, far in excess of any attention paid to the established religious organisations or the large and growing group of “no religion”.
The fact that this wowser group of rabid religites is meeting in the Great Hall in Parliament House is just so depressing to me. Although I left Oz for Scotland and felt safe (well, sorta, kinda) in the Home of the Enlightenment, I didn’t think Oz was as subject to the raving religite loonies as the southern UK and the US and, of course, other places.
I have watched the religites infiltrate Oz under Howard and that stupid religite pair, Abbott and Costello. I watched as goody two-shoes Pyne came on board and the rest started to stand up in Parliment and push their barrow into education, health and sexual mores. Appalling!!
Now there’s that Catholic Rudd and that’s why this meeting is happening where it is. I feel so despondent when I come across things like this. I am so tired of listening to faith-based crapola as if the real world didn’t even exist. I am getting to the point where I think people have to sign a contract with health professionals (not the woo-woo brigade) stating that they understand that science not faith is what they are receiving. They should be required to do the same before they board an airplane.
I don’t know how to keep this awful religite stuff out of legislation. I see its revolting influence here as well and it burns me up.
Sorry - went on a bit there. Excellent post Kate, I have copied it. Have you thought of creating a wee tract to hand to these twits as they denounce homosexuality and gay marriage and parenting? I am thinking of making one for the street corner evangelicals as I come across them. You can’t talk to them, may as wll give them something to read. Tit for tat.
I have read the publication ““Reasons Why Marriage Matters” referred to in the article. The only reference in that paper to gay parenting is a study by an Adelaide researcher entitled “Children in Three Contexts”, which found worse school & social outcomes for children raised by gay parents.
Browsing the net, it seems this paper is a favourite quote-source for the religious homophobes, all of whom fail to mention that:
(a) the study was small (176 kids) and methodologically flawed
(b) the study only looked at children born into heterosexual relationships and later raised by gay parents (it did not include any children born into gay relationships or adopted by gay couples as infants
(c) the study is 13 years old and significant further research, which has consistently shown that lesbian and gay parents are as fit and capable as heterosexual parents
Wikipedia quotes numerous studies (and no, I am not citing Wikipedia as authoritative - I have gone to the original sources wherever possible), the general tenor of which is that:
“The abilities of gay and lesbian persons as parents and the positive outcomes for their children are not areas where credible scientific researchers disagree. Statements by the leading associations of experts in this area reflect professional consensus that children raised by lesbian or gay parents do not differ in any important respects from those raised by heterosexual parents. No credible empirical research suggests otherwise”
So, like I said - Argument 2: WRONG.
(P.S. Thanks for the feedback on the original post - Veronica, feel free to use it in pampheteering, and good luck!)
Thanks Kate – I may well make up some tracts. I am tired of being accosted so need to do some accosting back.
The study cited may well have had only 176 kids but then, how many homosexual couples who adopt kids are there? Why are they such a threat? The argument that marriage is basically to progress the species is, in this century, a specious one. Besides, with 6.7 billion people plus medical intervention that keeps us alive for longer, who needs any more people on this poor, benighted planet?
These people say that ‘marriage’ is not something that gays should be able to do. Civil unions are good enough for them, legal equity is assured (well, maybe), but they shouldn’t be able to ‘marry’. Utter twaddle - as though meanings of words don’t change over time. Etymology might be a good start.
None of the arguments hold water. There’s one that says the kids of gays suffer abuse at school and therefore gay adoption shouldn’t be allowed. Bollocks to that as an argument. Try being a kid of an immigrant family, not speaking English, in Oz or anywhere else for that matter. Try being an intelligent kid in the playground.
School yard abuse was rife when I was a kid. Eye glasses were enough an excuse for abuse, let alone extant intelligence. If you were a thin, nerdy looking boy, watch out!! That sort of abuse will never go away because of societal attitudes. Kids of homosexual parents are never going to be a huge number; they are as likely as any kid to suffer abuse at the hands of other kids, or supposedly adult teachers for that matter.
There’s another one that postulates what may happen to kids of gay parents if and when the parents split up or die for some reason. Are the kids to be adopted out to straight couples? Or wait until more gay couples turn up? Who will take them? This seems to me to be an argument from the desperation corner to bolster an argument with no teeth.
Apart from the obvious difference between straight and gay couples, why is it that forced distinctions are propounded by idiots as well as those who are otherwise, normal, sane people? Here are my guesses and these otherwise normal, sane people will arc up at them:
• Fear – even in those who have homosexual family members
• Revulsion at prurient imaginings of sexual congress – my advice: stop imagining and get a life
• Religion – well, what can you say they are all nuts and need strait jackets
• Un-naturalness of homosexuality – despite its incidence in many, many other species
• The problem of AIDS – even though most AIDS is now spread heterosexually, especially in Africa. Or by needle exchange by the increasing number of intravenous drug users. This one really pisses me off. Let’s vilify drug users without doing anything about underlying societal inequities. Drives me batty.
Let everyone breed unwittingly (as most conception actually is) regardless of any ability or resources to rear kids but ban gays (usually in well paid employment) from rearing kids because they will ‘taint’ the kids with their own life-style. Makes me want to spit!!
Right, that’s part of what I want to get off my chest!! It doesn’t really stop, does it!!
Veronica take comfort in that The Mad Monk Abbott’s daughter knows her father very very well..
http://www.theage.com.au/national/abbott-lame-gay-churchy-loser-says-his-daughter-20090812-eibw.html
Dear Kay & V,
An enlightening convo, however enjoyable as it is, it falls on deaf ears. Or should that be blind yes. I doubt that many of the god fearing fruit cakes are amongst Crikey’s readership. Look, these people are dangerous nutters, especially in these straightened times. Our main task is to make sure they don’t get aboard the ark this time around.
I know John,
It does some good to be able to write though. I understand the readership of Crikey does not normally take in religious and ultra conservative Aussies.
Carrying on conversations with religites is a lost cause - they only respond in order to evangelise and count up their lollies from god. They have squandered reason and sequestered rationality to a place where the sun don’t shine.
That’s OK. Although I believe that letting off steam, which is what I have been doing does not a catharsis make. Or if it is cathartic, it doesn’t do me much good. Ah well.
Thanks Raymond!!
Does my heart good!! I also love the fact that Phillip Ruddock’s daughter won’t speak to him and that George Pell’s cousin is a lesbian and he won’t talk to her.
Hahahahahaha.
I spent some time emailing that hideous Costello after I saw him on TV (with Howard) at Hillsong Church. I didn’t ever get a reply but it felt good lashing out at him for all the stupid, crass, mindless things he did (still does) and said (and still talks!!). Arrogant prick!!!!!
Still, the streets of Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh have their fair share of street preachers so I can keep my hand in. I reckon they are fair game. If they stand there spruiking, they can expect an utterly disrespectful, denigratory tongue lashing from me. Besides it is practice!!