I passionately believe in Marriage Equality and if you are on my Facebook friends list, that will have been very obvious. The majority of people I surround myself with also want marriage equality but like me, a lot do not want this plebiscite. If we were talking about other issues affecting one group of people in the community such as women's rights would we have this plebiscite? No we would not, so why are we having it for this issue? Why are we asking the public to cast a vote that is not legally binding? Why are we spending $122 million which could be used elsewhere on this plebiscite?
Imagine what $122 million dollars could do for Domestic Violence services in Australia? On average one woman a week is killed by a partner or former partner, one in three women will experience physical assault and one in five women will experience sexual assault in her lifetime. This is an epidemic. Surely the money could be better spent on ensuring the safety of women and children escaping domestic violence?
For the past week I have spent many hours reading articles and watching debates on Marriage Equality and I ended up on the Australian Christian Lobby's website and I was shocked by what they claimed will happen if Australia has marriage equality. I will list what they say below, along with my thoughts on their reasoning:
Redefining marriage will threaten free speech
I am not sure how having marriage equality will do this to be honest. Marriage does not affect free speech now and I cannot see that changing. The only thing I can think of is they are worried that they may be charged with discrimination but the thing is, discrimination laws, including laws of discrimination against sexual orientation already exist. I was a bit worried that they only said that redefining marriage will threaten free speech and did not explain how. It seems to be fear mongering to me.
Redefining marriage can take away your religious freedom
Again, this is not explained. Having marriage equality is not taking away anyone's rights to practice their chosen religion. Religion should not be coming into marriage equality, it is not a religious issue, it is a human rights issue. Every consenting adult should have the right to marry who they want, no matter if the person they love is the opposite gender or the same. Love is love.
Redefining marriage is the step before redefining gender itself
I had to reread this sentence when I first read through the reasons to vote no. I have no idea what they mean by this because, yet again, no explanation was given. Transgender people deserve love, compassion and support to be who they are. Transgender people deserve protection from bullying and deserve to have rights along with every other person on this planet. I have spoken to transgender people before and not one of them have wanted anything but acceptance. The bullying and persecution transgender people face is devastating, suicide rates are high and depression is rampant and for the Australian Christian Lobby to use them as a reason to vote no is down right disgusting. Transgender rights are a different matter entirely and it is not fair to bring that into the marriage equality debate. This statement is also rather presumptuous.
Redefining marriage takes away children's rights - all children deserve a mum and a dad
By the time I got to their last point I was quite angry. Marriage equality does not take away children's' rights, it actually gives children of same sex couples equal rights to their peers. Same sex couples can adopt and foster. These children have been given up for adoption because the birth mother felt it was best for the child. Social workers and the courts have assessed that these same sex couples are suitable for adoption, they have the training and knowledge to make this decision more than an organisation like the Australian Christian Lobby. I will fix the last eight words of their sentence. All children deserve loving parents. This point that they make could then go on to attack single parents, widowed parents or families where one parent travels for work for months at a time. Where does it stop? Should we not be protecting all children by teaching them that there are many different types of family?
I had a look around the Australian Christian Lobby's website and on no page does it explain their reasoning for objecting to marriage equality. This concerns me as it does come across as fear mongering, whether they mean it to or not. I cannot take their views seriously if they cannot at least explain why they have made these statements.
Another reason I have heard from christians is that marriage is to start a family. I have many problems with this statement. This is not always the case, there are plenty of married couples who choose not to have children or cannot have children. Marriage is supposed to be about committing your life to the person you love, promising them to love them through sickness and health, to support them and cherish them. In traditional marriage vows, it does not cover the topic of children.
I have gay and lesbian friends and nothing would make me happier than to see them have the legal right to marry their partners. These people do not want to take over the church or force people into same sex marriage, they just want to be equal. They want to be able to model a loving relationship for their children, they want to be able to show that legal commitment to each other. Why would anyone, christian or otherwise want to stop a loving couple from marrying?
If you are not in a same sex relationship then marriage equality will not affect you, so why try and stop it? Why try and stop loving couples from marrying? Why try to keep same sex couples unequal? Why get in the way of their happiness?
Marriage equality will not ruin the institution of marriage. Reality TV shows like married at first sight is more of a threat, husbands acting like they own their wives is more of a threat, women being encouraged to stay with abusive husbands for the sake of their marriage is more of a threat to the institution of marriage.
I will be voting yes to marriage equality, along with my partner and many of my friends and I encourage you to do the same. You still have time to enrol to vote or update your details. Tell the government it is time to have marriage equality. It is time to say yes. It is time to come into the future.
I have thought about this topic a lot lately. I have often found myself wondering if in ten years, twenty years, fifty years, will we look back on this the way we do when we look back to when women could not vote? Indigenous Australians could not walk into a pub? The stolen generation? slavery? I have a feeling future generations will be ashamed of how long it took us to achieve marriage equality.
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