The federal Australian government of Kevin Rudd has done its first act of pure bastardry. As I noted before, the PM thinks that marriage is reserved for heterosexuals only. He can think that. He can think that marriage ought only be performed between fertile postpubescents who are of the same race and income bracket for all I care. What he cannot do, is impose this view on the community in the face of pretty well overwhelming opposition by ordinary Australians. But this is what he - like his predecessor the unlamented John Howard - is doing. Because he (not his party, not the populace, he) thinks that either same sex marriage is wrong, or he thinks that permitting it might lose him support from the conservative religious community, he is intervening to prevent the Australian Capital Territory government from enacting same sex marriage laws, just as Howard did.
The ACT was until fairly recently governed by federal ministerial fiat. It was quite properly given self government in 1988. But the federal government has the power to override legislation the ACT legislature enacts if it doesn't like it. It lacks this power for the states, and ought not to have it for the capital either, for it disenfranchises voters there (but that's for another time).
I said in my previous post:
Where is it said that marriage must be heterosexual? Answer: only in a religious tradition, especially in Christianity. Society has moved past that restriction, but the present government, for all its undoubted virtues as a reforming government, is ruled by religious believers, including the very (but rather sensibly otherwise) religious Kevin Rudd, PM.
and no sooner was the ink dried on the screen than this was demonstrated amply. It is wrong. It is undemocratic. It provides religions with exeptional powers, contrary to the constitution. I hope someone challenges this in the High Court on those grounds.
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You know John,it just baffles me what amount of religious bigotry,one might even say fundamentalism,seems to be lurking behind the facade of K Rudds modern liberal worldviews,we had inclings of it during the election campaign,but I really dont get where this guy is coming from anymore,frankly,he confuses me.
I wonder what motivates this guy to step in and bombard the ACT same sex marriage laws now,really dont get it.
I do not think that Rudd is motivated by anything close to fundamentalism. He's your garden variety liberal Christian; but the worrying thing is that being a Christian at all means that there is an inbuilt tendency to favour other Christian views, irrespective of their flavour.
Sydney conservatives include both the Catholic and Anglican prelates, and no matter what theological views they might have, they both want an undue influence on public polity (although Pell, the Catholic cardinal, has attacked evolution for being theologically unpalatable).
In an article Rudd wrote well before coming to Labor leadership, he put forward effectively leadership, he set out a sensible position, but I fear that he will go the way of Beasley and others and try to pander to religious influence for support.
> "but I fear that he will go the way of Beasley and others and try to pander to religious influence for support."
Well,i think thats a given,and has already happened,see the election campaign.
As fas as the "garden variety liberal christian" goes,that has a very different meaning in the US or my home country Germany as it has here,nevertheless gives me the creeps because I think of those people as enablers of fundamentalism these days.Thats just me though...
Sigh. My first major disappointment in this government. I knew I was going to be disappointed when Julia Gillard didn't get opposition leader.
What is particularly disappointing is that many of the people now supporting Rudd's decision were the very same who openly attacked Howard on this issue.
This reminds me a bit of the vote that the otherwise "sainted" Paul Wellstone cast in the US in favor of the "Defense of Marriage" act. He voted to not allow gay marriage just because of his religion. It was a strange anomaly, for him, an egregious error in judgment. He later regretted it and stated that he wished he had voted against it, once he saw how much it hurt people in real life.
I wrote to my federal member of parliament about this. It's the first time I've been suitably disgusted with the government enough to write. I hope everyone who disagrees with this does the same.
Winston Churchill believed that the tactic of appeasement should only be pursued from a position of strength. (Is there a 2nd Law of Godwin which is violated by mentioning Churchill or Chamberlain?) In any other circumstance, appeasing a threat is a de facto recognition of its power and that acknowledgement, far from weakening it, only serves to make it stronger. Every time politicians pander to the views of a particular religious group they only serve to increase the influence of that group within society which, from people who are notoriously reluctant to share power, seems like a bad idea.
On the hand, in a democracy, we elect representatives to a legislature who are supposed to at least take account of the views of their constituents, particularly if they form groups which are numerous enough to influence the outcome of any ballot. Whether or not they are religious, they have a voice which is entitled to be heard and views which must be at least considered when formulating policy.
For me, the solution again lies in the views espoused by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, firstly, the warning that the majority should not be allowed to ride roughshod over the rights and interests of a minority simply because they are in a majority. I agree that government should not be in the marriage business but they should have the authority to license civil partnerships. In that case, following the second of Mill's principles, the only justification for denying gays the right to civil partnerships would be if it could be shown that such a right would trespass on the rights of others. Since there is no presumed right not to be offended, the fact that some religious groups find homosexuality to be offensive does not count as a compelling objection.
Marriage is a basic civil right that should be attainable by all citizens if they choose. For the truth about gay marriage check out our trailer. Produced to educate & defuse the controversy it has a way of opening closed minds & provides some sanity on the issue: www.OUTTAKEonline.com
Well, John, you know my opinion (I basically agree with you). But are you sure he lacks majority electoral support on this issue? I'm no fan of the tyranny of the majority, but I'm still interested in any recent polls that you've seen.
I also think that the state should keep out of marriage and let it be a purely cultural/religious rite for anyone who still wants it. I also think that people should be free to make up their own fancy new rites for threesomes, Heinlein-style line marriages, or communes involving the participation of large intelligent reptiles (if there are any to be found), or whatever the heck else they want. As long as everybody is old enough to know what they're doing, the state should neither facilitate nor forbid any particular kind of sexual arrangement, site for family formation, or whatever. But of course, that's a long-term viewpoint.
Charlotte - I assume that "basic civil rights" should be possessed by each and every one of us, without regard for the sorts of living arrangements we might choose. If married people enjoy rights that non-married people don't have, then those rights need to be severed from marital status -- pure and simple.
Living in the ACT, I am of course outraged by this.
It has two strikes against it - the constitutional one where - if the ACT is truly self-governing - it ought be allowed to actually govern itself; and of course the substantive issue of getting proper rights for people who love each other, regardless of their sexual orientation.
But I can't say I'm all that surprised. I noted Rudd's me-tooism on things like the terror laws in the election lead-up. A true reforming Labor government would have acted to repeal these draconian laws straight away; instead Attorney General McClelland has already signed control orders limiting the freedom of people accused of involvement in terrorism, but convicted of no crime under Australian law. "Innocent till proven guilty" remains a liberal pipedream in Australia post-John Howard, instead of being a basic legal principle.
And in the case of gays, Rudd faces a likely hostile Senate where the ultra-conservative Family First senator may be a key vote. Phrases like "Family First" don't seem to have much relationship to most families I know!
I might be wrong, but my understanding is that the legal outcome is pretty much the same: you just can't have a legally binding "ceremony". The register still gives you rights regarding property, kids, etc. which is what (IMO) marriage is for. As a hetero getting married I actually tried (and failed) to get out of the silly requirement for a ceremony.
It's a dumb-ass decision, and I have no doubt it'll get beaten eventually (another decade, tops), but please note that civil unions were not, in themselves, quashed, it was the legally binding ceremony that was stopped. You can still have any ceremony you care to enact, it just won't have legally binding power. The paperwork, though, DOES, and there's nothing to stop you signing that at your non-binding ceremony, so it's all bit of a pointless insult, really.
It was a half-way measure in any case. It was a "civil union" ceremony, which was stopped because it "mimicked" marriage. Well screw that! Damn right it should mimic marriage. It should just be called "marriage" and be done with it. THAT would be equality. What we were trying to get was pandering to the ignorant anyway. All of this bullshit pretending that it wasn't REALLY marriage was offensive in itself.
If only popular opinion in the US were as strongly in favor of allowing gay marriage as you suggest Australian popular opinion is. Maybe because there's such an extreme level of religiosity among Americans, gay marriage is vociferously opposed in large sections of the US.
From Wikipedia's "Recognition of same sex relationships in Australia" article: