Page 2648 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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I have spoken to many Canberrans about marriage equality. Many people have reflected on the love and commitment of their own heterosexual marriages. They have spoken of the deep injustice they have felt that same-sex relationships are not offered the same sanctity or recognition in Australia. Others have stated more simply that they feel their marriages are in no way threatened or diminished by others being afforded the same basic right to marry. I note that some people in the community do hold that view and I feel saddened for them that they see that their relationship could be diminished by two other people being able to celebrate their own relationship.
The Greens have always stood up for, and will continue to stand up for, marriage equality. Every Green MP in Australia has voted for marriage equality every time it has come before a parliament. It was more than 20 years ago that former Greens leader Bob Brown became the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia. It was not long afterwards that Christine Milne led reform in Tasmania by decriminalising homosexuality. The Greens are confident and we know that we are on the right side of history. We are absolutely sure of that and time will prove that to be the case.
We are talking about an issue that is about love, that gives rights to people without taking rights away from anyone else, that does not cost anything and, at the end of the day, that simply makes people happier. So I am confident this fight will be won. It is right; it is simple; it is fair; and it is decent.
But before we get there, I do want to name what I think is at the heart of the resistance to this reform. It is simply prejudice. That prejudice is based on an ultraconservative view about what a man and a woman should be, which belongs back in the 1950s, back when a woman’s place was in the kitchen, when Aboriginal people could not vote, and when blacks and whites could not marry.
Marriage has never been a static institution. It has changed. There have been big changes to the institution of marriage, and this is one more change along that journey. By legislating for marriage equality we can send a positive message to young people who are coming out and coming to terms with their sexuality: that your community accepts you; that your relationships are equal and valid; and that your community loves you just as they love every other member of that community.
We do hear conservative members talk about the issues of kids being brought up with homosexual couples and the outcomes that they experience. Frankly, this is all discredited. The science has been very clear that children who are raised by same-sex couples have the same psychological, social and academic outcomes as children who are raised by opposite sex couples. But, unfortunately, we do see the junk signs trotted out by people with the very prejudices that I was speaking of earlier.
The health impacts associated with people’s sexuality are a consequence of discrimination and stigma by not being made feel as if they are accepted as equals in our society. They have nothing at all to do with the choices that people make. We know, for example, that if you are same-sex attracted, you are more likely to smoke, more likely to have had a chronic condition, much more likely to have experienced high levels of psychological distress, more likely to have had suicidal thoughts and plans and more likely to have attempted suicide.
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