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No Gay Marriage unless the Federal Parliament says so

December 12, 2013 12:46 PM / 8 Comments on No Gay Marriage unless the Federal Parliament says so

This result is precisely what I expected when I wrote may earlier post on the overreach of the Canberra Town council>

The High Court determined that the federal parliament has the power under the Australian constitution to legislate on same-sex marriage, and that whether or not same-sex marriages are legalised is a matter for the federal parliament.

“The Court held that the object of the ACT Act is to provide for marriage equality for same sex couples and not for some form of legally recognised relationship which is relevantly different from the relationship of marriage which federal law provides for and recognises,” the summary judgment said.

“Accordingly, the ACT Act cannot operate concurrently with the federal Act.”

It said because the ACT does not validly provide for the formation of same sex marriages, the whole of the ACT’s Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013 has no effect.

Supporters of gay marriage were dismayed at the ruling.

“This is devastating for those couples who married this week and for their families,” Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome said shortly after the decision was handed down in Canberra.

However, he said the ruling was just “a temporary defeat”.

Australian Marriage Equality spokesman Ivan Hinton was one person who took advantage of the ACT laws, marrying his partner Chris Teoh in Canberra last weekend.

“I don’t want to be unmarried this afternoon,” he told reporters outside the High Court.

The Australian Christian Lobby said the ruling upheld the uniformity of marriage laws across the country.

“Marriage between a man and a woman is good for society and beneficial for governments to uphold in legislation,” managing director Lyle Shelton said in a statement.

“It’s about providing a future for the next generation where they can be raised by their biological parents, wherever possible.” Mr Shelton was concerned for same-sex couples who thought they were married under the ACT legislation.

“Understandably they will be disappointed at the decision handed down today and it is unfortunate they were put in this position,” he said.

Human Rights Law Centre spokeswoman Anna Brown said the ruling was a blow to the same-sex couples who had tied the knot in the ACT.

“The outcome has laid responsibility for advancing marriage equality squarely at the feet of the federal parliament,” she said.

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said her government had no regrets about pursuing marriage equality.

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There are no short cuts to bringing about such a substantive change to our society and anyone who thinks that its a good thing to try to make such changes through the back door opened by an  overblown town council are clearly deluded. The high court has spoken and made it clear that the definition of marriage is entirely within the remit of our FEDERAL parliament and the activists that pursued this bit of street theatre should be hanging their heads in shame that they have given Gay marriage advocates  such empty and  false hope,

Well I’m Cheering a good decision Comrades

Wedding_Dash_Glu_Mobile-new-0

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Will Gay Marriage be put to the people?

April 29, 2013 6:47 AM / 67 Comments on Will Gay Marriage be put to the people?

I have been saying for years that if the proponents of Gay marriage are so sure of the community’s support then they should be advocating for a plebiscite to truly measure the real amount of public support for the the concept of  same sex “marriage”. Well it seems that it might even happen  if the report in today’s Fairfax press is to be believed:

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Personally I doubt that the plebiscite will get up or even be debated in the parliament because neither Labor nor the Coalition are that keen on the “gay marriage” , then again Labor might go for it on the basis that they may get some small amount of positive PR from suggesting that they are putting the question to the people.  Its no surprise to me that the Gay marriage advocates like Rodney Croome are less than enthusiastic about the idea because the experience of votes like the one held in California on proposition 8 showed a substantially lower level of public support for Gay marriage than the often claimed 80+% that he and his fellow travellers are so often citing on the issue.

It could be  bit more spice into the pot for September 14  but I suspect that when it comes down to it that we won’t be having a plebiscite and that the only reason that this idea is being floated now is that the bit players  want an issue to campaign on that will differentiate them from both Labor and the Coalition, the former  because Australia’s oldest party has such a stench of death all around them and the later because they have so much momentum that independents will otherwise  be consigned to the dustbin of history…

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Cheers Comrades

wedding rings animated

Well done Mr Newman

June 13, 2012 6:03 AM

As a supporter of Civil Unions for same sex couples I was a little concerned that the declaration that a LNP government would scrap the hastily created Civil Unions act in Queensland because it seemed to me to be a wrong decision. Fortunately as it turns out Newman has found a way to amend the legislation to create a compromise that we can all live with.

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Of course the so called “equal love” zealots like Rodney Croome or our learned friend are going to be horrified and they will see this as a retrograde step but they don’t really like the realities of democracy anyway. No, putting the the zealots to one side this decision is a sound and sensible one that protects the interests of couples without offending those of us who believe that marriage is a profoundly heterosexual institution that does not need reform. Well done indeed  Mr Newman

Cheers Comrades

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Putting Pandora back in the marriage equality box

June 5, 2012 8:32 AM / 7 Comments on Putting Pandora back in the marriage equality box

By Jim Wallace – posted Tuesday, 5 June 2012

Slogans such as ‘marriage equality’ and ‘equal love’ have dominated the gay marriage debate so far. But as the federal parliament inches closer to dealing with the three ‘marriage equality’ bills that are before it, we are finally beginning to see their consequences.

During the recent Senate Hearings into one of the bills, the Green’s Marriage Equality Amendment Bill, former High Court Justice Michael Kirby was asked what logical reason could be given for not extending ‘marriage equality’ to other configurations of love such as consenting polygamous and polyamorous ones.

“The question that is before the parliament at the moment is the question of equality for homosexual people,” he told the Senate.“There may be, in some future time, some other question.
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The lesson in courts and in the parliament, I suggest, is that you take matters step by step.”

And it is clear by recent events that there are those who are very interested in seeing those next steps.

Last week, leaders of Australia’s polyamorous community expressed disappointment with Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young for rejecting equality for their relationships.

Hanson-Young is yet to respond to the specific question of whether the Greens will drop their support of ‘marriage for all’ and the clear expectation the bi-sexual community in particular has in their policy.

This week The Punch and SBS featured a polygamous relationship in which the participants complained of discrimination from authorities and said if it were legal they would marry.

Of course such talk is dangerous indeed for gay activists, and Rodney Croome, the campaign director for Australian Marriage Equality, felt it necessary to explain why ‘marriage equality’ did not apply to the poly communities, so as not to unhinge his own campaign.
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Ironically, many of his arguments mirrored those used against same-sex marriage.

Croome says that same-sex attraction is ‘immutable’ but then tells the poly community their sexual attraction is a choice, which seems strangely at odds with his allies the Greens, who must surely treat all these sexualities equally.

Or do they now suddenly believe that we shouldn’t treat everyone’s love equally?

Certainly such intolerance from gay activists seems less than acceptable to Nikko Antalffy who recently gave a rambling defence of polyamory in a national newspaper, claiming it takes us back to our pre medieval natural desires.

But let’s be honest, they are in reality pagan desires, customs rightly long rejected, and now only contemplated by a parliament that is perhaps less esteemed than any in the country’s history. A parliament forced to consider the intolerable due only to the artificial power of the Greens.

Marriage was institutionalised to protect not only society from the nonsense of things like multiple unions, but specifically children. Unless children were involved, government would have no interest in marriage.

Neither gay nor polyamorous “marriages” could serve the interests of children. Gay marriage by definition denies a child either a mother or a father. Mother love and father love that no amount of gay-activist-dominated studies can tell a parent doesn’t matter to a child.

Croome says another reason for not extending marriage equality to polyamorous people is that it would complicate the family law system.

But in some states gay activism has already erased fathers from birth certificates and led to the nonsense of even a single man being able to get a child through surrogacy.

In Croome’s mind this level of complication to family law, not to mention to the child, is OK.

How insulting it must be to polyamorous people to be told by Croome that their love is less equal and that the ‘group dynamics’ of their relationships means they can’t have ‘marriage equality’.

He argues their relationships are less stable. So too are same-sex relationships, when compared to marriage, but try using this as an argument for man-woman marriage without being demonised.

Again, more breathtaking double standards.

Comments by polyamorous activists such as James Dominguez and his wife Rebecca, show they are deadly serious about rights for their community.

They live with Mr Dominguez’s boyfriend and Mrs Dominguez’s boyfriend and went to the trouble of lodging a submission to the Senate inquiry.

In blog comments last week, Mr Dominguez expects that the Greens will champion any future popular move to legalise poly marriage.

He says no-where in the world where same-sex marriage has been legalised has there been a push for poly marriage.

This is simply untrue. The first country to legalise same-sex marriage, Holland, now allows civil law contracts for polygamists.

In seeking to allay society’s concern of a slippery slope, activists assure us that same-sex marriage is a natural stopping point, but if nature can be brought into this argument, then surely biological marriage is the natural stopping point.

It is time to move past the slogans and consider the consequences for society and children of redefining marriage. Because clearly there is an agenda well beyond the current claim on it.

Re posted under the terms of its Creative Commons licence from Online Opinion

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