The enlightened Brian Harradine weighs into the Gay Marriage debate....
"Agreeing to same-sex marriage would confirm the desire of adults to choose a family format to suit them as more important than children's needs to have a mother and a father. It would endorse a deliberately motherless or a fatherless family. It would mean our community has no interest in whether children have a mother and a father.
....
Governments should not change marriage to meet the demands of lobby groups. They should instead be looking to strengthen marriage through better education, counselling and taxation relief. We all lose by erosion of the status of marriage, but the biggest losers are those who most need our protection - our children".
Some questions that need to be answered...
1. why does the gay marriage issue necessarily effect children?
2. what of childless married people then?
3. why does allowing some people to get married have any real impact on more "conventional" marriages?
4. why not allow Gay people to get married if it results in a more stable union for those people?
These key questions aren't really answered in Harradine's bundle of assertions. This is indicative of how little reasoning often goes into many people's attacks on gay marriage / gay adoption.
Thankfully Harradine is man enough to admit that he doesn't "agree with the lifestyle":
Now, I have a genuine concern for the wellbeing of people in a same-sex sexual relationship. I don't agree with the lifestyle, but I recognise that ultimately adults are able to make personal choices.
It seems that sentiments such as this are what really underpin many of the arguments on this issue. They really don't like homosexuality (even if begrudgingly accepting that adults have a right to choose), and they are scared that any legal recognition of same sex marriage would result in greater societal acceptance of gay people.
On another note, it is very interesting that Harradine regards homosexuality as a "personal choice", which again seems to highlight his lack of understanding on the issue.
As I have alluded to in previous posts, one wonders why the government would seek to limit people's personal choices in a situation where there is very little demonstrable harm from those choices. I do believe that stable families / relationships are something a government should encourage (to the limited extent that they can) - but for me that seems to be a reason to encourage gay marriages.
Read on: The Australian: Brian Harradine: Redefine wedlock at children's peril [March 09, 2004]
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