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A cautionary tale…
Gay marriage: an issue of both the legal and the spiritual
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It was probably never the affable Opposition leader-in-waiting Joe Hockey’s intention, but he’s made a convincing case for why the churches’ true believers should rethink their approach to same-sex marriage; stop being so biblically literal and reconsider your “questionable facts and outdated prescriptions” indeed. If there is a God, and I’m not at all sure on that score, surely she wouldn’t have intended for Australia to fall behind most of the developed world in elevating same-sex couples from being second-class citizens in the modern day secular state to gain the full force – and responsibility – that comes with proper legal recognition of their primary relationship, mine included? Nor would God want gay and lesbian people and their families to feel so ostracised from the church, surely? We still need a verifiable way of legally acknowledging those relationships – writing a will just to prove we’re attached seems downright morbid – but the well-organised church lobbies simply keep fronting up every time Canberra considers the issue, insisting gays and lesbians will destroy the institution of marriage and somehow undermine the raising of children. Despite the fact Hockey was raised a Catholic, it’s unlikely Rome was listening to his Sydney Institute speech In Defence of God on Monday night: witness the Vatican’s not-so-subtle dog whistle last month to misogynist and homophobic “traditional” right-wing Anglicans unhappy about female and gay bishops and the blessing of gay marriages to come reunite with the Catholic Church. Perhaps they’ll read Hockey’s notes more closely when a mere trickle of disaffected defectors cross faiths. By coincidence on Monday, the same day Hockey delivered his speech, the Catholic Sydney and Melbourne archdioceses were giving their best literal biblical interpretations of same-sex relationships as the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee held public hearings in Melbourne over the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009, a private member’s bill moved by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Their submissions – available online –will surely be easy for gay activists to counter when they rally in every capital city to launch the Year of Action for Same-S-x Marriage on November 28. Sydney Cardinal George Pell’s submission in particular gets itself into an awful knot over how to define marriage, a “natural institution whereby a man and a woman give themselves to each other for life in an exclusive sexual relationship that is open to procreation”. Leaving aside that marriage is not so much “natural” as a construct whose responsibility has passed from the churches to the state over the centuries to adapt to changing societies, Pell himself recognises his church’s limited definition of marriage raises critical questions about the right of infertile heterosexuals to marry. To wit, Pell offers this non-sequitur: “Marriage between a man and a woman always has inherent capacity for, and orientation towards, the generation of children, whether that capacity is actualised or not.” Infertile heterosexual couples may be left wondering how they will “actualise” the “generation” of children, short of IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, assisted reproduction techniques about as popular with Pell’s church as the Mardi Gras. Pell cites the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, which declares “the right to marry and to found a family”, then claims a virtual compulsory connection between the two, stating “international law has always understood and affirmed the enduring, unchanging truth that marriage is a life-giving union of a man and a woman”. But he makes no mention of article 9 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which holds “the right to marry and the right to found a family shall be guaranteed in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of these rights” – while neither prohibiting or imposing same-sex marriage, the article recognises such diversity under national legislation. Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Norway and Sweden all recognise same-s-x marriage, and many more have national civil union and registered partnership schemes for its citizens. Pell also quotes a 1990 UN Human Rights Committee report that states the right to marry “implies, in principle, the possibility to procreate”, yet he conveniently leaves out the same committee report also noted there was “no standard definition of family”, which could mean both “nuclear” and “extended”. Pell then insults gay and lesbian couples by claiming their children suffer “profound loss and deprivation”, without any bothersome research to back his statement. He does however make time to quote from the Holy See from 2003: “Homosexual unions … do not need specific attention from the legal standpoint since they do not exercise this function [creating and raising children] for the common good.” Surely the children of gays and lesbians benefit from having parents in a stable, recognised relationship? As for the common good, when politicians and priests tell gays and lesbians they are are inferior, it sanctions a society to discriminate against its fellow citizens and legitimises emotional and physical violence – and where is the good in that? Gay people come from wider “traditional” families too; we hunger for spiritual nourishment just as much as anyone else, but when the lobbying churches use federal law as their proxy to tell us our relationships are unworthy of equal recognition, based on outdated biblical prescriptions, their legally and morally entrenched homophobia simply sets fathers and mothers against gay offspring, and the peace-preaching churches legitimise persecution and sanction family breakdown. That’s indefensible. Steve Dow is a Sydney journalist. |
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62 Comments
I’ve been browsing some of the submissions on the Senate website (http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/marriage_equality/submissions for anyone interested).
Most of the “anti” are peculiar, incohert or downright scary - you can browse them at your leisure.
Try this one (a very mild example) for starters:
“As a secondary high school teacher in the public system I am all too aware of the effect
that a lack of society standards is having on the up-coming generation. Children require
guidelines and boundaries, a lack of these produces confusion and kayos [sic] …. … People were made differently for a reason, we need to accept those differences between the sexes and what they offer to the family unit - rather than destroy the very foundation of society.”
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/marriage_equality/submissions/sublist2/against/Sub_ia183.pdf
Yes folks. These people are teaching our children.
And they have the gall to suggest we are bad parents.
I don’t understand why same-sex civil unions with the same rights and responsibilities as marriage aren’t enshrined in law by now. I think the gay rights movement shoot themselves in the foot always wanting gay marriage or nothing. This is a tired argument, and a tough one for the religious to endorse. Time for some pragmatism. Get civil unions off the ground, wait about 10 years for the world not to explode and then propose an ammendment to rename the civil unions to marriage. Case closed, move on. Incremental change is the only way gay marriage will happen.
What a coincidence. It is 10 years since same-sex relationships were included in the definition of de facto in NSW (and many other jurisdictions). The world has not exploded.
Enough already with the incremental change.
My human rights are not incremental. I am not a second-class citizen and I am not prepared to settle for second-class rights, incremental or otherwise.
Pell’s human-rights construction of marriage can also be used to argue that unmarried couples have no inherent stand-alone right to reproduce.
Pretty sure he’d have argued for precisely that in the 1950’s, before unmarried coupledom became common, and he’d have been on the wrong side of that argument as well.
Ideally civil marriage would have nothing to do with religion, and Pell would have no greater influence over its enactment than anyone else. I feel a distinct creepy uneasiness whenever religious figures use religious reasons to limit the activities of perfectly moral, upstanding people who clearly don’t follow the same religion they do. Like a low-key, differently-robed Christian version of the Taliban.
In my ideal world, civil marriage would be totally separate from religious marriage. It’d be open to all couples, whether or not their churches approved. Couples who wanted a church wedding with a priest or a rabbi or a pirate would be free to have one if they wished in addition to (or in parallel with) the State ceremony, but it’d be widely understood that the two concepts were completely different and that the religious aspect of it had no legal recognition or importance.
Call it “civil unions” if you must, and make it open to everyone regardless of sexual orientation. Problem solved, before beer o’clock on a Friday no less!
- mark
@Mark - your “ideal world” is France. That is exactly how it operates there.
Tough one for the religious, got tired, then pragmatic. Scott has moved on. See ya.
You’re well off without the dead hand of the church in your lives.
Re Mark.
As I understand it one reason that the ACT legisation can’t be made inclusive of hetrosexual couples is that this would imply it was legislation about marriage. This would leave it vulnerable to the view that, by including same sex couples, the ACT legislation contravenes the Commonwealth marriage Act. However, since the Commonwealth Act defines marriage as between a man and a women, legislation which is only about same sex couples cannot by definition be about marriage. Which is what is required to get it through the federal parliament.
This is how silly the situation has become.
@Kate - Who said marriage was a human right? A lot of divorced people would say it’s a human rights violation
Seriously though, I recognise the argument that suggests introducing same-sex civil unions would result in these same-sex unions being valued less than heterosexual marriages. I disagree with this however. Just because it’s different doesn’t mean that it’s inferior.
And regarding Pell, if he was honest he would admit that not only does he not think that gay people can be married, be doesn’t really think all you straight Hindus, Muslims or Buddhists are married either because that involved no sacrement to the one true God. So, I guess, you might all be in need of a civil unions as well if medieval theologans are given any significant power.
It’s utterly ridiculous that the Christian Church ever took this one on. The teaching against homosexuality was a warning from the Jewish Torah (the Old Testament).
They were supposed to be different?
Their own Messiah taught that love is something that should never be oppressed or resisted, and they put that in their book (the New Testament).
Marriage is not an ancient institution, Cardinal Pell. You should know that, you are very clever and well read. So you should know that you are talking bollocks and don’t have good references. But this Cardinal is also up to hedging his bets, and taking a stand against Climate Change Believers.
I personally suspect the man is having a crisis of faith. He’s realised he backed the wrong horsie and now he’s running for cover, throwing out red herrings. A true maladaptive teapot impression, and he’s even made it Public. That’s lovely of him - because I enjoy a good giggle at people trying to make out their own delusions are the absolute objective truth.
“Different but equal”, Scott? Sounds like apartheid to me. (Would we be expected to accept “same race marriages” and “inter-racial civil unions”?)
There is simply no reason to call same-sex marriage one thing, and heterosexual marriage another thing. A public, legal, monogamous, lifelong committment betwen two adults is marriage. It should be called that. Gender is as irrelevant as race, and distinctions based on gender are equally as offensive in modern society as distinctions based on race.
It’s true that as a human rights breach, it’s well down on the list compared to what many gays & lesbians around the world face. But banning marriage, or calling it by some weasel word, simply reinforces the fact that in our grand secular democracy, we’re still not quite allowed to sit at the grown-ups table. It’s bulls!t, and there’s no need for it.
Time will come (soon, I hope), when this whole conversation will be faintly embarrassing. (“Seriously Mum, are you telling me they used not let gay people get married? That’s stupid.”)
Nice article that I wholly agree with. Why can other countries do this and not us?
Why, as a straight person, do I have so many choices denied to my gay friends? I can choose to get married, or live in a defacto relationship, to have or not have children - gay people are denied many of these choices.
Surely the current attitude by the Federal Govt entrenches discrimination despite moves made to make access to superannuation, estate management etc easier?
What does it take for politicians to look at other views apart from those represented by the churches?
@Kate: Yes, most of the issues the church gets hot and bothered about are like that.
“Seriously, Mum, are you telling me they used to take aboriginal children away from their mothers?”
“Seriously, Mum, are you telling me they didn’t want women to vote?”
“Seriously, Mum, are you telling me that it used to be actually illegal to be gay?”
Wind back the clock, and the overtly religious have been on the wrong side of each and every one of these issues, claiming that liberalization would lead to the downfall of moral society. They’ll be on the losing side of the gay marriage issue too, it’ll just take time.
Progressivism is a rough game, but a worthy one, and one that the good guys almost always win.
- mark
at least when the Muslims take over they will get rid of these perverts
“Pell offers this non-sequitur: “Marriage between a man and a woman always has inherent capacity for, and orientation towards, the generation of children, whether that capacity is actualised or not.””
Work this one out, George… I’ve been to two second marriages of couples where the woman has been post-menopause. Kindly tell me where “the generation of children” comes into these? Are they married? Should they have been allowed to marry at all?
Actually I suppose the answer is - in Catholicism there’s no such thing as second marriages unless the first one is annulled.
Have to get rid of those civil marriages, eh George?
@Malcolm … what do you think of my grubby little suspicion, that Cardinal Pell is having a crisis of faith? And that’s why he keeps putting on these strong performances, and making such a fool of himself?
I hear the Vatican came out yesterday suggesting there could be other intelligent life in the universe. I was gobsmacked. Er … guys … if you have only one life, and get judged by God at the end of it, hence the concern for making rulings on other people’s sex lives … why do you need (a) a policy on aliens; and (b) a policy on climate change?
I agree about the policy on climate change. Debate would be a whole lot more honest if the devout religious types just admitted their policy on climate change is the rapture. That can then be judged for whether it is considered a sufficient response by those or a more materialist bent.
As a married, non-religious person, I would like to see the word “Marriage” applied to the State-sanctioned union between two people, heteros_xual or otherwise.
The Church (by whatever name) could find another word… may I suggest “religious union”, because I have no fondness for the phrase “civil union”.
Problem solved. As a bonus, Catholics would never have to worry about annulments before a second go-round.
And what a fertile subject for critical analysis the process and practice of annulment would be for a journalist. It leads to denial by at least one party that the other party and the whole first marriage, were without merit. Shameful and degrading! On the same intellectual and moral plane as public stonings.
@Altakoi, I have been caught by your insightful observations before now, and thus cannot resist asking you to elaborate on your idea here. The “rapture”? I don’t quite get it, can you enlighten me if you have time?
Well, I’m not sure about my Christian terminology, but the basic idea is that if you are a true believer in the biblical view then you have firm views about how the world will end, and the fate of the human race. You cannot believe that we face extinction from a climate catastrophe and also that we are to be saved by the second coming. Similarly, you are unlikely to believe that global catastrophe can come in a guise other than the horsemen of the apocalypse, final battle of good vs evil at armagghedon etc. So my basic point is that, if you have a devout theologically informed view of the future there is really not much point asking your opinion about climate change. Example one, Tony Abbott - he already has his favorite apocalyse and the world can only end once.
Alatkoi et al - you’re getting into a bizarre area of Christian theology called eschatology - the theology of the last days. There’s lots of interpretations of it. I’m not a Xtian (six years at an Anglican high school put me off for life) but anyway this is what I understand about it:
The Rapture is a minority interpretation of Revelation coming I believe from a couple of 19th century US preachers. Essentially God pulls out his chosen ones before the apocalypse - to the rest of us they just disappear. Good reason not to allow Christians to be airline pilots
. This is the basis of the ratbag and disturbingly popular (in the US) Left Behind novel series. So there’s a group of Christians who think whatever happens to the world won’t affect them - they won’t be here *physically* to face the consequences and indeed it’s their passport to paradise.
There’s other views that include a period called the Tribulation, when in the last days Christians come under renewed persecution under a world dominated by the Antichrist. The Antichrist is someone who appears as a benevolent world figure but is actually a front for Satan. Antichrist-spotting is a great sport for the lunatic fringe of Christianity. My sister in the 1970’s reckoned it was the Ayatolla Khomeini - too bad he died. Personally I think Ban Ki Moon (sp?), the Dalai Lama (whom I’ve seen seriously put forward as a possibility) or Al Gore could be candidates
Anyway, that means there’s another group of Christians to whom any attempt at world action or organisation (eg the UN or the Copenhagen meeting) is a front for the Antichrist. But after it’s over Jesus returns, the Antichrist is defeated and it’s a Christian paradise, Jesus presiding over a 1000 year Reich purified of Jews, homosexuals and non-believers. It’s Good News folks!
Some years ago I gave Christianity another go in the guise of the Quakers (I have a lot of Quaker ancestors and a close friend is a Quaker). Wonderful, intelligent people with a strong social conscience and a distinctive and very powerful form of spirituality based on continuous questioning rather than pat answers. Then I started reading the Bible for the first time in twenty years, not the nasty Old Testament but the New Testament of alleged peace and love. I was so horrified by it figuratively speaking I ran for the hills and have never been back. It does have some wonderful things in it, but the overall picture is anti-Semitic, anti-homosexual, anti-intellectual, misogynist, pro-slavery and paranoid. Then there’s Revelation, which was the last straw for me - short version, God goes berserk, destroys the world and all’s well for his favourites - too bad for the rest of us.
***Basically for many Christians the end of the world is not only inevitable, not even just desirable, it is *essential* for their ideal to become a reality.***
Scared yet?
Robbi64 - re. gays and Christianity. Jesus said nothing on the subject, but Paul is another matter… Read Paul’s letter to the Romans, the first and longest of his letters. One of the first paragraphs is a round-ticket diatribe against gays. And it was Paul, not Jesus, who founded Christianity as we know it.
Robbi, it sounds quite possible that Cardinal Pell is having a crisis of faith and as a result lashing out at minority groups.
It’s hard to understand what motivates people who actively fight for the continuation of discriminatory laws.
@Jillian, I hope you are having a lovely relaxing Sunday, catching up on Crikey blogs … how very kind of you … I agree!
I have been suspecting the Cardinal of having a personal crisis for a while now. He is thrashing around like a man who has discovered something very unpalatable. What fascinates me are the things he is choosing to be a Big Man about.
Climate change. Homosexuality. Aliens. Anything I missed?
Why is the church in such a knickertwist about these things? It’s almost like they’ve finally worked out their Second Coming isn’t going to happen the way they think, and they’d better do something relevant in an earthly sense in order to continue justifying their existence?
@Alkatoi … thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciate it when people will answer polite questions in blogs. Could you forgive me for pulling a long bow here … but a Big Man in a crisis about absurdities … perhaps he’s under the influence of “rapture” … and is that what you are saying in a nutshell?
Thanks Robbi. The funny thing is I have been trying to go to the shops all weekend, but I keep getting stuck on the computer!
In relation to the ‘rapture’, there is an entertaining book called ‘Beam Me Up, Jesus’ by Jim Gerard that explains the various beliefs of Christian fundamentalists about how the world will end. In essence, the rapture involves Christians being swept up into the sky and taken to heaven, leaving everyone else remaining on earth in bewilderment.
Jillian, I am sure you are doing The Right Thing, by expanding your horizons rather than going shopping.
I must get this book. That imagery sounds wonderful. I would be happy if their Jesus would perform this service for us. I would not be bewildered, Iwould be cheering for them. They would then be Out of the Way. And we could get on with doing sensible things, without them giving us chapter and verse why we can’t.
Now, what if they’ve completed misinterpreted their ideas, and if Christianity is in fact the product of a marketing meeting some 300 years after the original events? It’s quite possible they are in the rapture right now, i.e. being swept into an emotional crisis called “the rapture”, where you do and say lots of things that will embarrass you later … and don’t recognise it for what it is.
That’s the problem with living by documents written by upset people - they aren’t very clear and sometimes get things wrong. And it’s easy to get things wrong, if you weren’t actually there at the time. Isn’t it.
It’s a tempting thought that we could get on with doing sensible things, without them giving us chapter and verse why we can’t - but I would still miss some of them.
Yes, Jillian … you’re right. I forgot about a couple of friends I would miss a great deal too. I know they would be so happy, but I think they might miss me as well.
It has really vexed me for a long time, that I’m a liberal bleeding heart with a strong sense of justice, who believes that homosexuals should be treated like anyone else. Yet I’m in disagreement … with some of the most well behaved, unselfish and kind people I know.
How can the Christian value system create this paradox???? Why am I finding that I stand alongside people who behave so poorly toward some other humans, I sort of wish that someone would teach them some manners and courtesy … much like Jesus tried to do? But here we are, trying to fight the same battle? It’s a real headscratcher. I need more coffee …
It reminds me, Jillian, of the debates I’ve had on other blogs, where climate change activists go hammer and tongs at EACH OTHER over tiny scientific details.
“…other blogs, where climate change activists go hammer and tongs at EACH OTHER over tiny scientific details.”
Let me guess - New Matilda?
Take your pick. It happens everywhere.
I’ve tried to point out once that it’s not a good look when we who agree that the climate is changing, and we should stop using so much fossil fuels … can’t agree with each other over whether the oceans pick up carbon dioxide or some such guff … and get venomous over it.
Er … guys … there’s all these people out there who reckon Jesus is going to save us. Do you think you could be using your considerable brainpower on them? No, apparently. They can go to hell in a hand cart, we’re too busy point scoring.
Yes. People get venomous too easily in general. It’s much more pleasant for everyone if we can avoid that. With someone I used to know (offline), he would always try to start fights and I would do everything possible to avert a dispute. Then I saw him when I was jetlagged and I didn’t have the emotional energy to do much other than fight back reactively, which was unfortunate.
Ah. I hate it when I do that too. I try so hard to be patient and understanding. But I think I’m running out of energy to keep doing it.
There are huge numbers of people out there not caring about climate change, using their cars and appliances like there is no tomorrow. Why do they do that? We get so upset at them.
I am coming to the unpalatable conclusion that they don’t want to know, because they don’t like being told they are stupid or “scientifically illiterate”. If they have to listen to people telling them that, they tend to feel like being somewhere else, preferably with a coldie. Why bother extending themselves for people who put them down?
It leads them to conclude that humanity is not worth saving. And so, they can’t be bothered.
I have been so bombarded with climate change scepticism (by people on Malcolm Turnbull’s facebook page) that I no longer know what to think myself.
And what do you do when you’ve been bombarded with so much conflicting information you can’t make a decision for yourself?
I shut down and ignore the issue, personally. I might pull myself together later when I realise it has happened, but not everyone can recognise when they’ve been that overwhelmed by data.
I hope you have rid yourself of the addiction to Malcolm’s Facebook? That must have been painful. He looks unwell. I feel concerned for his wellbeing at the moment.
I am still following the issue, but not reaching any definite conclusions.
I’m on there every day, once or twice a day.
He is under a lot of pressure. He is being attacked from all sides. I hope it gets better for him soon.
Mmmm. In spite of my politics, I have always had a soft spot for Malcolm.
This is how the Libs do it. They are democratic capitalists, so we are allowed to see them behave like spoiled children over who gets to be Leader as this is in line with their dogma. It’s always painfully public, and the current Leader always has to herd cats.
The ALP don’t do it quite so publicly, but the venom and bad behaviour is just as bad. They are more behind the scenes in their fights, because of the caucus discipline. But they’re awful. Just awful. I left the party, they were that awful. I left with a drove of departers in the 1990s, who all went off not to care anymore … and keep popping up now in GetUp.
I’m still in the Liberal Party. At the moment, it’s as bad as the wet/dry dispute of the 1980s (which was before my time, but I have heard about it).
Jillian, I salute your courage, commitment and perserverance. We must have coffee sometime, and show how two people from different sides of politics can get on beautifully, and even share some common viewpoints.
Now to read what Malcolm has offered us in respect of the “rapture”. How exciting for a Sunday.
Robbi, please feel free to add me as a friend on facebook.
Hi Jillian - thank you for the Facebook invitation. The “Malcolm” I refer to still hasn’t passed moderation, which seems a shame because he wasn’t being intolerant.
He explains more about some of the Christian thought in his contribution, which is very enlightening and interesting.
He also points out that it wasn’t Jesus who said gays were bad. It was St Paul. As Saul of Tarsus wasn’t a Jew, and wasn’t part of Jesus’ childhood group of friends and relations, it could be that he didn’t really understand what they were about. As he was a Roman citizen, he could say whatever he liked and none of the others could disagree. He was also a human being who had suffered a lot. Obviously he had some personal issues - and I would suggest that those issues informed his position a lot more than the teachings of J’esua.
Because I’m a psychologist, Jillian, so I gets a bit about what makes people get zealotry.
Feminist literature has a lot to say about St Paul and most of it is not kind. I can understand why some women feel rather angry at him. If he was the one who got gays banned, whipped up more prejudice against people with different tendencies, and also got women oppressed for a few more centuries, it would seem … he has a case to answer?
If we only live the once, I would presume that God took it up with him. If we don’t and the Hindus are correct? Gosh, isn’t that an interesting idea! If it’s a cold hard random universe? Then we’ve been right royally HAD. And thus, the debate goes on as we hammer religion into irrelevancy. If I were Cardinel Pell …. it’s a Brown Trouser Moment.
Robb164 and Jillian,
8 sets of shared responses, leading closer and closer towards each other!
How sweet, their public warming adding its own small contribution towards global warming.
I wonder, is this a record for Crikey? Will this be a match made in heaven; either before or after the Rapture?
Will coffee be enough, or will it lead to a union of disaffected ALP and LIB souls?
Thankfully, Sunday will soon be over and then it is back-to-work day.
Yo John … I’m a Robbi 64, not a Robb. Am not pretending to be any relative of Andrew.
Maybe Jill and I will have our own party by the end of the week? We wish! At least it is shared warmth between two people, not hot air being pumped outward for everyone’s benefit?
Yeah, Monday looms. I don’t like them. It’s swimming lesson day and my son doesn’t want to be Ian Thorpe.
While you’re still about, John, you might be interested in something I fell over recently, about the word “marriage”? I wondered often, after finding out it wasn’t such an ancient institution, how did the word evolve? Why did it begin with the affix “mar” when we use that word to denote something broken?
I discovered the Latin “mar” means “shining”. How interesting that we modern English speakers have reversed it to mean the opposite.
Robbi,
I definitely agree St Paul has a case to answer, but unfortunately I think it’s a cold hard random universe and so there is nothing that can be done about it.
@Jillian. Surely eradicating Paul’s marketing efforts, by hammering Christianity into irrelevancy, is doing something useful, even in a cold hard random universe?
It’s upsetting Cardinal Pell, who keeps trying to read us chapter and verse, so we must be doing something right. Ah, nothing hurts a man more than indifference.
I will see if I can find you on Facebook, and send you a virtual latte.
I’ll just jump straight to it.
I don’t know why non-christians get married or even care about marriage.
Since living together beforehand is fine for non-christians why does it matter?
If its just a cultural thing, then remember that George Pell has his culture and he’s sticking to it.
As a non-christian, I’m looking forward to the rapture. (/troll)
@Energypedant … you are correct, but missing the point.
Our same sex friends in committed relationships are not getting the same deal that is extended by the State to heterosexual marriages.
If one of them dies intestate, for example? The State has a real problem, because it cannot recognise the claim of the same sex partner on the estate. So that person can end up losing everything owned by their departed partner to their state-recognised “next of kin”. If you’ve been living together a long time, and put all finances in together, but just forgot to make a clear will … you have no legal right to your partner’s estate.
Our government tries to do something about it, and suddenly Cardinal Pell has something to say about that activity, and wants it stopped, because of his cultural belief system. So his cultural belief system, in his eyes, has more validity than this discrimination. And he puts the pressure on, chapter and verse … and we have to chatter about it. Can you see our point now?
Meski … you stirrer.
re Energy Pedant
Pell can, of course, have his culture - its basically called the Holy Roman Empire and its been defunct in most peoples mind for a millenia or more but whatever floats your boat - but the issue is the appropriate role of the state. The Christian view on gay marriage is not right or wrong, its just completely irrelevant. It is to be taken no more seriously as a legal principle than a Buddhist proposal to outlaw the eating of meat because that violates certain tenets of their faith.
Gay interest in ‘marriage’ is, in the main, an interest in having access to the legal apparatus of the state which deals with perogatives of partners in areas such as superannuation, medical care, adoption, accomodation etc. If living together conferred all of these, then I suspect many people would be happy with civil unions.
It leaves a small number of people who feel that, by refusing to use the word marriage society is implicitly undervaluing gay relationships compared to ‘good’ ones. While this is true, I have to admit that I hold the people who use the term marriage in this way in contempt and so really don’t want their endorsement. Sneering is a useful marker of people I don’t need to waste time getting to know. I would really take it as a badge of honor not to have Pell and his like approve of my civil union, because I sure as heck don’t approve of his lifestyle.
@Altakoi: ” I would really take it as a badge of honor not to have Pell and his like approve of my civil union, because I sure as heck don’t approve of his lifestyle.”
Agreed. but in this case, I’d say hell. Heck is just a euphemism.
Its just for the spam filters.
Looks like it gets through.
Altakoi and Robbi 64,
Is the issue that the state doesn’t recognize defacto gay relationships?
My understanding with defacto relationships was that once you’d been living together for 6 months or so it had some fairly significant legal implications (mostly over who’s stuff it is).
Yes, there are de facto provisions in some states and, as I understand it, a register in Victoria. This has significant implications for who gets half of the house etc. But just as with hetrosexual relationships, I don’t think de facto status covers all of the areas covered by marriage.
Just this week I read an article about the Vatican reconciling scripture to accomodate the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe. If the pope is happy to bring aliens into the fold, how damned hard can it be to do the same for homosexuals, Mr Pell!
I hope the aliens have appropriate orifices, or its going to be short communion.
Aliens must be preferable to poofters? What if the aliens think different? Have they got a policy position already mapped out? Just in case? ROFLMAO. Sorry. That’s irreverent and probably intolerant of me. They are perfectly serious, putting this statement out. Aren’t they?
When the Year of Same Sex Relationships is due to commence on November 28, the Church put out a policy statement on … whether there might be aliens. Hmmm. Very X Files.
Have they been drinking? %>
Jeebus,
“Just this week I read an article about the Vatican reconciling scripture to accomodate the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe. If the pope is happy to bring aliens into the fold, how damned hard can it be to do the same for homosexuals, Mr Pell!”
Bravo! I love it.
Gay marriage is completely imcompatible with Christianity, in any reasonable form (i.e. any form actually linked to the Bible) and it’s foolish and dangerous to think otherwise. Now, in my view it’s the Christianity that’s in the wrong, well and truly, but I have far more respect for a Christian who ‘loves the sinner but hates the sin’ than the person who claims to be a Christian, but simply re-inerprets that term to mean whatever they feel like.
If you let religions get away with that, you end up with a situation where major religions can (and do) change their position on issues for political expendiancy at will. A literal biblical Christian is okay, because you know where they stand, even if you disagree with them on many issues. On the other hand a ‘Christianity-means-whatever-I-want-it-to-mean’ Christian (who seem to be in the majority these days) have a licence to hold whatever views they like (as does anyone else) but then still have the gall to claim their views are heaven sent, because they choose to label themselves as Christian!
Gay rights (including marriage) are in my view, and in the majority view of modern Australia, ethically and morally correct. Christianity clearly states otherwise. Therefore Christianity is incompatible with the majority view of Australians on ethical and moral issues. However, because we like the idea that our morals are founded at some level on some higher power (they aren’t, modern ethics and values derive from philosophers who fought against Theocractic domination) we like to pretend this disagreement doesn’t exist, by re-interpreting Christianity as something much more warm and cuddly than it is.
You can call it ‘being less literally’ if you like, I call it ‘lying’.
Boghanvist - “Gay marriage is completely imcompatible with Christianity, in any reasonable form (i.e. any form actually linked to the Bible) and it’s foolish and dangerous to think otherwise.”
What is incompatible is *Christian* marriage. But no-one is saying to churches that they have to conduct religious gay marriages, all that’s being asked is the ability for gay couples to have *civil* marriages. In other words, *it’s none of their business because by their world view a civil marriage by itself isn’t a real marriage anyway.*
Re. other comments re. aliens. What if the aliens only have one sex? Or, more interestingly, what if they have more than two sexes?
I’d love to see a few Catholic brains explode.
Aliens may not have an opinion on monogamy or sexuality, especially not if they have more than four or maybe five orifices. No, this line of thought is getting out of control.
Returning to the X-Files policy statement. I would suggest (for those of you who have been exposed to my thought before) that what we have here is a Maladaptive Teapot Impression.
For those who have not read the very long thread where we first meet this idea … in short, the Teapot Impression is a maladaptive reaction to existential terror, when you do not want to feel the actual feeling of existential terror, and will do anything, literally anything … to avoid the feeling of discovering that there is actually nothing you can do … about the thing crushing you into dust.
I deal with people trying to avoid this feeling on a daily basis, so I do recognise it when I see it.
Malcolm Street - You are quite right about the distinction between the legal concept of marriage and the religious ceremony that can optionally accompany it. Let me be more clear than I originally was; *homosexuality* is completely imcompatible with Christianity, in any reasonable form (i.e. any form actually linked to the Bible) and it’s foolish and dangerous to think otherwise. Naturally then, Christians will, and should, oppose any legal reform which legitamises homosexuality, just as they would oppose some law legalising murder, theft etc even if they had no intention of taking part in such acts.
I re-iterate again that I come down firmly on side of gay rights here. With that clarification to my opening sentence I stand by the rest of my earlier comments.