EDIT - HOLY SHIT I A LOT OF WORDS
Stop me if you have heard this one before. Gay Marriage was a bit of a point in the last election, but ultimately so far hadn't been anything that there was any movement on (probably just due to timing of the election). One state passed a law legalising it, and now suddenly it has been thrust onto the national stage with federal intervention.
This is happening in Australia over the last couple of days.
The ACT (Australian Capital Territory) passed a law legalising it 2 days ago. This is literally where the majority of our politicians in power are here in Australia, it is like if Washington D.C. was the place that got the ball rolling in the US.
The thing that makes this pretty great is that on a Federal level, Gay Marriage was a "low priority" issue for the party that won the election. They didn't outright say they were against it as a party, but have many vocal members including the Party Leader and now Prime Minister who were openly against it (along with the support of the Australian Christian Lobby who classically both parties pander for votes from), this has kind of changed since the election (if media is to be believed, which I think they are compared to politicians on the campaign trail). In comparison the former Government candidate openly supported it along with many vocal representatives, but the party didn't really say it was for it as the party line. So in the face of that the State government where all these dudes are flip the fucking table and are all like "Yep we are doing this, we can make this happen" and it just passes (9 votes to 8).
So I like this, it is something that I wish had actually been an election issue and the ACT state government has forced the issue instead of just letting the government just sit on it as "low priority". I have said if Labour hadn't hummed and hahed about their policies and just laid them out on the table as "We will let people get married, we will let NBN go ahead as per plan. This is what we are doing, take it or leave it" they would have had a much better campaign by forcing it to be entirely policy based (instead it was a pissing contest again and they lost because they have been consistently shitting the bed for 6 years now).
Do I think they should have to do it this way? No. I actually agree with the Liberal party in that it shouldn't be a big issue, it shouldn't get in the way of legislating about economy and "jobs" (because we are always legislating about "jobs"). It should be "OH we want to recognise that people want to be represented the exact same way regardless of two people's genitals." RUBBER FUCKING STAMP MOVE ON. Instead it is an isssssuueeee.
So anyway, that is my soapbox done. Here is the fun part.
Tomorrow it goes to the high court to be reviewed, opposed by the Federal Government. So it is getting addressed and made a national issue. Which is a pretty interesting one.
There is all kinds of arguments for and against floating around, there is nation discourse about it (not that it fills up ALL the news because one of the states is on fucking fire again. Australia everyone!). We have stuff like the
Prime Minister telling people to hold off on getting married until the High Court Case has been finished (Better to have done it and have it take from you than wait and be disappointed; I say as the asexual eternal bachelor.) or you have the
outright batshit insane response *** YOU MUST SEE THIS SHIT I WISH I WAS THIS GOOD AT IRONIC COMEDY *** that the response is "of course it isn't offensive, it was for teh lulz" because Gay marriage is a joke if you are a "Good Christian tm".
There is one specific response that I really want to talk about and sit down and analyse though. It is actually a pretty tame well thought out response, if you haven't actually sat down and thought about the issue. It is one I have seen come up a lot before. You see it in
this For and Against article on the Against side of things and I will quote and discuss before I degenerate into my usual state of absolute derisive not even remotely constructive criticism and pissy mockery.
Marriage is a national issue. Having split arrangements with different laws between states and territories poses many potential legal and social problems. As a small territory, ACT should not operate as an island.
And this here is the real catch. There is only a single reason that Marriage is actually a Federal issue here rather than a state one. That is because our definition of "Marriage" is defined at a high level Federally. It doesn't actually explicitly prevent same sex couples from getting the legal benefits of being Married, we have De Facto partners here who get to enjoy a lot of the tax benefits and legal benefits that married couples do. The Marriage act very explicitly is just about the definition of Marriage, who can perform ceremonies and sign the legal documents etc and nothing at all about the
function of Marriage.
The vast majority of other things in how that Marriage or De Facto Partnerships function though in what benefits they get (other than Tax where they are
mostly equal) are in fact defined on a state level. The actual impact of Marriage is preeeetty much a state level issue. In fact
There is a whole thing on Australia.gov.au that explains the difference in marriage law state by state!.
Except that definition of what Marriage is in that Marriage act.
There is a pretty good example of just such a case that sets precedent for updating the Act into the 21st fucking century to allow for what is being termed Marriage equality. You see we had a pretty big change to it just 9 years ago that really shifted things up a bit. It used to mostly cover off the legal age of marriage (18+ unless extenuating circumstances), when a Marriage couldn't be recognised because it was performed under duress, was a polygamist relationship or incestuous or not performed by an authorized celebrant (as an aside I think anyone who fucking parties hard should go through all the hoops to get that license so whenever someone tells you to slow down you can just be all "its okay bro, I am authorised for this shit"). Then there is 1 billion lined defining various kinds of authorised celebrants.
Back in 2004 though, they needed to change something, so they went in and did it just like that.
The amendment was as follows.
Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.
Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia.
So yeah. Before that there wasn't actually anything Federally preventing gay marriage from being recognised (except that it wasn't, especially not at a state level). There wasn't really a "definition" of marriage other than be over 18, don't be related. It now very explicitly states that there got to be dick and poon in the equation. Apparently sleeping around also nullified it LOLOLOLOLOLOL because open relationships and three ways means you aren't being straight right.
Thank fuck we live in the 21st century and aren't in to archaic bullshit like we were way back in the 21st century.
So lets put it this way. The only reason the definition of marriage is a Federal issue is because the previous Liberal Government (dudes in power now if you didn't follow along with names) made it one 9 years ago because someone had the temerity to suggest that maybe if we are going to give same sex couples pretty much all the rights of married couples and the law doesn't like say they CAN'T be married. Then maybe we should just let them get married (the Act was passed in response to Civil Unions being recognised in the UK in the Civil Partnership Act of 2004).
So here is where I turn into a giant raging dick.
So can we just redefine marriage nationally and be done with it? No. There are many people around Australia who disagree with redefining marriage for many social, religious and personal reasons. These include religious people, but also many who value marriage and the natural link between father-mother-child, and even many same-sex attracted people themselves. These people will have their freedom restricted by redefining marriage in that they now have to call something they don't believe is marriage as 'marriage'.
Well you know what? Yes we fucking can. We did it before. We can fucking do it again and do it right this time.
Also what about the natural link between father-father-child or mother-mother-child? I think you will find pretty much any scientific study on attachment will show data showing that children give 0 fucks about where their carer's dick is at. In fact, here is how natural that link is,
in the 1950s there was experiments done on monkeys depriving them of their real mothers. Baby monkeys formed bonds with wireframe mothers that were warm and provided them milk. Children bond to their carers and providers. Especially if they love them back, which you know, gay parents do just as much as straight couples.
Also you have some pretty sick definition of freedom if the neighbours who have NOTHING to do with your relationship with your partner can dare have the same kind of relationship as you. This shit is like Casual gamers VS Hardcore gamers with genitals. So much entitlement over words. I am sorry if having to face the reality that other people have emotions ruins your own experience for you. Maybe you should try growing the fuck up and having some basic goddamned empathy. Those children you are trying to protect probably have it,
most people develop it by the age of 4, so if you work at it you just might get there.
Further there are many people such as parents, teachers and ministers who are impacted by either having to recognise, support or educate about something they don't support.
QQ more. You mean like every other second and every other aspect of damned life? Welcome to democratic systems motherfuckers. That is suppose to be a GOOD thing.
Now to maybe get a little less douchey.
In trying to force forward this issue, the ACT tramples on substantial debate still needed. We risk breaching the vital human rights of freedom of faith and freedom of speech.
I have already kind of discussed this, but that was actually part of the campaign the Liberal party had. They just weren't going not talk about it. Not address it at all by declaring other issues more important, as if government needs to be entirely restricted to X issues and never touch this one because it isn't important (Except for that time when it was important because the gays were thinking that touching dicks together was going to be tolerated).
There is actually a stupid blind optimist part of me that dreams of the possibility that the government is actually opposing it just to get it addressed. Don't expect to win, oppose it, lose, then its legal and you hand it over to the states to deal with individually. Like they kind of already do for most things Marriage related. This is of course fucking retarded and not what is happening.
Same-sex marriage is a core social issue for us as a country and therefore needs to be carefully considered at a federal level. It impacts many people. It should therefore be voted on via a referendum in order to truly represent the view of our democracy.
So yes, it is a core issue and needs to be looked at. Hey maybe someone should push the issue! I think a referendum passing a definition on marriage is a pretty cool idea. You know, like we did last time we defined it on a federal level. Oh that didn't go to a referendum then? And it was done at the END of a term in government so wasn't even an issue when representatives were being selected? Pretty cool story bro. This is actually one of the very few times that you can actually get a remotely representative response from your elected representatives, they were just in a campaign where it was an issue, so you could actually vote for them based on their policies, unlike the last time something happened in this space.
But you know the great part? Your Rep won't get to be representative so long as the parties stick to party politics. Consistently the issue during election was whether it would get put it to a Conscience vote. The Liberals never would give a solid answer. If it plays out the way it looks then the party line will win. The party line of the party in charge is No to same sex marriage. They have a majority, so that is what would pass unless a lot of people grew a spine (and less of them than do so in Opposition that don't support it! Because that ACL still have big support on the Labour side of the fence) and buck the party and are prepped for political suicide.
Which I should cover off by saying
here is a link to polls on Marriage equality on the site of big campaigners for it. Note that they present independent polls here. Note the public support for it in majority.
Something is very wrong with us. This shouldn't be an issue. I wish we could just be like New Zealand on this. 2 months ago they just went "WTF bro? Gay marriage? Yeah, do it." Everyone high fived and there was some pretty impressive back slapping afterwards. Instead we tip toe around it and talk about how hard it is and how careful we have to be. We wouldn't want to OFFEND people (that aren't gay) after all.
