Falling off the slippery slope of same sex marriage

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Falling off the slippery slope of same sex marriage

 

Jack the Insider Blog | 19 June 2012 | 362 Comments

Yesterday, the seven members of Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives released a report into two private members bills that seek to legalise same sex marriage. The two separate bills have been proposed by Labor MP, Stephen Jones and Greens MP Adam Bandt.

Of the seven, only two MPs, Labor’s Graham Perrett and Laura Smyth will support the bills. Their two Labor colleagues on the committee, Mike Symon and Shane Neumann indicated they would vote against Jones’ and Bandt’s bills. Liberal MPs Sharman Stone and Ross Vasta concurred with Symons and Neumann. Liberal MP Judi Moylan sat on the fence.

The Opposition leader, Tony Abbott has determined the Coalition will not have a conscience vote on the floor when the bills are voted on. The Coalition will vote on party lines and oppose the bills.

The Labor caucus will summon up as much as half of its 70 votes in support of the bills. The result will be a crushing but predictable loss for supporters of same sex marriage.

While conscience votes don’t usually cause any enduring rancour in the Labor Party, today Chief Government Whip, Joel Fitzgibbon indicated that Stephen Jones’ bill may be brought forward for consideration in the lower house as early as August. Bringing the bill forward is designed to prevent a further shift of Labor’s dwindling support to the Greens prior to next year’s election when the bill goes down.

However, Adam Bandt’s private members’ bill may not be debated until as late as next year and the issue will continue to fester away within the Labor Party and reflect poorly on our parliament generally.

Last week on the ABC’s Q&A, Prime Minister, Julia Gillard was asked a question on marriage equality by Geoff Thomas; a Vietnam veteran with a gay son. Thomas had asked a similar question of Tony Abbott on the programme prior to the 2010 election.

Gillard’s answer in part was that she was in a committed, loving relationship that “doesn’t need a marriage certificate” and that in her view same sex couples should be satisfied with similar options.

It was a largely incoherent response that failed the test of logic and highlighted the fact that there are no sound, rational arguments against same sex marriage.

Last month the Australian Christian Lobby dispatched links to a video to 100,000 email addresses. In what must be a disappointment for the ACL, the video has had less than 20,000 hits a month later.

In the video, the ACL has cobbled together various quotes, including one from former High Court Justice, Michael Kirby to insinuate that same sex marriage will lead to further legislative change to allow polygamous marriages.

The argument is of the slippery slope type. The slippery slope is the lowest form of argument yet it is an almost reflexive response from conservatives to any type of push for social reform.

In 1967, the Australian people overwhelmingly endorsed a referendum which enabled the Commonwealth to make laws for the benefit of Aboriginal people. The referendum also allowed for Aboriginal people to be counted in the nation’s census.

Prior to the referendum, Section 51 of the Constitution read that the Commonwealth had the power “to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to the people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.”

What is less known is the impetus to conduct the referendum was stalled by Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies who in 1965, argued that amendments to Section 51 would necessarily create “a separate body of industrial, social, criminal and other laws relating exclusively to Aborigines.”

Thus Menzies was able to create the slippery slope; that one form of discrimination would replace another, as if Aboriginal people would be plucked from the depths of poverty and constitutional anonymity and placed into a legally enshrined position of privilege and untold power.

It was only after Menzies’ retirement that the will of the majority of Australians won the day.

In the same sex marriage debate, the nay-sayers use the slippery slope by invoking improbable and impossibly silly consequential outcomes that include the legalisation of polygamy, bestiality and paedophilia.

In other words if same sex marriage is allowed, we will take a ride on that slippery slope and before we know it, the gummint will be forcing us to marry our dogs. And not just the cute ones. That Read More

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