12 August – For Immediate Release -
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Australia: moving backwards on same-sex marriage?
Canada, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico and some states of the USA have all recently made legislation that allows same-sex marriage. Why has Australia fallen behind if more than 60% of Australians are in support of same-sex marriage?
In 2004, the Howard government introduced changes to the Marriage Act in response to a number of same-sex couples marrying overseas and requesting through the courts for their marriage to be recognised in Australia. Such was the concern of the parliament, that they rushed the bill through ahead of anti-terrorism and communication inception legislation. The amendments sought to define marriage between a man and a women, to explicitly exclude same-sex couples and to ensure that same-sex couples could not adopt from overseas. Australian Sex Party candidate for the seat of Melbourne, Joël Murray, comments “here you have parliament deliberately legislating discrimination based on sexual orientation. In doing so it sends a message to Australia that same-sex attracted people are second class citizens.”
Arguments for the discriminatory legislation always fall back on religious interpretations of marriage, that social morals will be undermined and that it weakens the concept of marriage. If we look to countries where same-sex marriage and adoption has been positively legislated, you will see that there are higher percentages of catholic and christian faith, when compared with Australia. “For me the same-sex marriage issue is about removing discrimination within legislation,” Mr Murray stated, “if two same-sex attracted people love each other and want to declare that love, or would like the option of raising a family through adoption, it should be recognise and endorsed by the state.”
Legally defining marriage contradicts the original intention of the Marriage Act. A country party member proposed a definition in 1961 which was rejected by the Senate because it was their believe that the meaning of marriage would evolve over time. “The beauty of the English language is that meaning does change over time,” Mr Murray said, “if we are to progress as a society then we need to be more forward thinking.”
The Australian Sex Party will be supporting the Equal Love Rally for Marriage Equality on Saturday 14 August at the State Library of Victoria. Equal Love rallies will be held simultaneously in all capital cities.
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Contact:
Joël Murray
joel@sexparty.org.au
0402 690 488
Justin King
Campaign Manager
king.m.justin@gmail.com
0405 554 729
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