It's a disgrace that this issue has been singled out for a dodgy plebiscite. Unsurprisingly, the same conservatives who have pushed for this would run a mile from the idea of putting up climate change action for public discussion.
The first thing to note is that marriage is not a religious institution. Yes, priests can officiate at weddings, but marriages are a matter for the state. An atheist or a Satanist can get married without setting foot in a church. Marriage has been been stripped away from the Ecclesiastical sphere for centuries. I have no problems with the various religions continuing to decide who can marry in religious ceremonies, but they have no role in determining marriage laws.
Marriage enables spouses to benefit from a range of laws. Access to the Family Court to decide property matters is a big thing. Even heterosexual de facto couples don't have that access. There are constitutional obstacles to extending that access to gay couples who are in a registered "civil union", a beast that is commonly thrown up as an alternative to allowing same-sex marriage. Recognition as next of kin for the purposes of inheritance, access to patients or superannuation is another obvious issue. It's impossible to provide gay couples with the same legal protection without allowing them to marry.
It's obvious nonsense that social conservatives just want to protect marriage as an institution and would be happy for gay couples to be given equal status in some other way. Extending the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage is a simple legislative task. By contrast, hunting down the myriad ways in which gay couples are disadvantaged in legislation, governmental administration and the private sphere is a Herculean task that would require cooperation between State and Federal Governments. Every step of that process would enable social conservatives to man the barricades. Let's face it - social conservatives will fight to the death to stop what they regard as the erosion of their values. And they want there to be humiliation and punishment for gay couples as a demonstration that society condemns the "choice" they have made.
The first thing to note is that marriage is not a religious institution. Yes, priests can officiate at weddings, but marriages are a matter for the state. An atheist or a Satanist can get married without setting foot in a church. Marriage has been been stripped away from the Ecclesiastical sphere for centuries. I have no problems with the various religions continuing to decide who can marry in religious ceremonies, but they have no role in determining marriage laws.
Marriage enables spouses to benefit from a range of laws. Access to the Family Court to decide property matters is a big thing. Even heterosexual de facto couples don't have that access. There are constitutional obstacles to extending that access to gay couples who are in a registered "civil union", a beast that is commonly thrown up as an alternative to allowing same-sex marriage. Recognition as next of kin for the purposes of inheritance, access to patients or superannuation is another obvious issue. It's impossible to provide gay couples with the same legal protection without allowing them to marry.
It's obvious nonsense that social conservatives just want to protect marriage as an institution and would be happy for gay couples to be given equal status in some other way. Extending the definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage is a simple legislative task. By contrast, hunting down the myriad ways in which gay couples are disadvantaged in legislation, governmental administration and the private sphere is a Herculean task that would require cooperation between State and Federal Governments. Every step of that process would enable social conservatives to man the barricades. Let's face it - social conservatives will fight to the death to stop what they regard as the erosion of their values. And they want there to be humiliation and punishment for gay couples as a demonstration that society condemns the "choice" they have made.