I’ve been mulling over the Federal Cabinet’s attitude towards proposals from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for equal treatment under Commonwealth law for same-sex couples.
News.com.au depicted it as a ‘hung Cabinet‘, with John Howard to make the final decision. That’s putting the best possible spin on what looks like a decision not to implement the proposals before the election (if ever). [The Ministers who are so “concerned at the expense of reforms, which would cost taxpayers millions of dollars in extra social security payments” clearly have little concern for the gay and lesbian taxpayers who get no equal return on their taxes.]
Crikey also sees John Howard as being in the hot seat on this issue - apparently he is in favour of the [limited] reforms but has been swayed into inaction by the trenchant opposition of Kevin Andrews and Tony Abbott. Do I need to point out that these two share a religion? Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that they share an affiliation with a particular political position within the Church. As Rodney Croome writes, it looks like Australian national policy on same-sex couples is being held hostage by the Vatican, more than by the evangelical Christians who are usually held up as suspects in this matter.
Those who oppose the extension of legal marriage to same-sex couples generally cite their view of marriage as a symbolic lynchpin of the Natural Order of Things. Presumably the Catholic Cabinet duo see the extension of pension rights and Medicare safety net entitlements in a similar vein - to allow Michael Kirby’s partner of 38 years the right to inherit his pension would legitimate their relationship and thus cannot be allowed; to allow the thousands of Australian households in which children have two mothers to use the Medicare safety net would legitimate such relationships and cannot be allowed.
Can there be any other explanation for Abbott and Andrews’ opposition to these reforms other than on the level of ideology? Surely they can’t think that giving Johan von Vloten a pension on Kirby’s death will encourage teenagers to go gay. I don’t buy the idea that they’re only responding to pressure from their constituents.
I’d appreciate a straight explanation. Until one is forthcoming (maybe it will occur to a journalist to ask Abbott or Andrews), I can only assume that the actuality of my life - and that of my family - is to be subsumed to the protection of their symbolic order. It’s pure discrimination.
About time someone said this out loud, suz.
Andrews and Abbott are directly responsible for the government’s degenerate position on homosexual rights. There appears to be little doubt we are to be ruled by a few sick old men in dresses on such issues. Australian women are suffering under the Vatican yoke too.
I am deeply disgusted by this radical perversion of our secular democracy.
Let’s not even start on transgender rights, such as the fact that a transsexual can’t get a passport if they haven’t divorced a spouse they had before transitioning,or the fact that even here in Oz, someone can be fired from their jub explicitly for being trans, with no recourse.
There was a thread about this at Blogocracy last week. The number of people yapping that everyone was responsible for the consequences of their ‘lifestyle choices’ was just depressing.
I can think of lots of ways to characterise being gay, but ‘lifestyle’ isn’t one of them.
A particular political position within the Church not dissimilar to that of the chaplain in the fascist-monarchist coalition in the Spanish Civil War who shouted at the soldiers he was posted with during the Battle of the Jarama to “shoot more of the atheist rabble” on the Republican side.
Sorry to douse the conspiracy theories, but I think it may have as much to do with an election happening later in the year. Some family first preferences could come in mighty handy for the libs.
I feel sorry for the actual people whose lives are being trampled on in this argy-bargy, but then again they’re not the first victims of political expediency.
I note that one of the reasons raised on ABC radio last week by a Federal Government member (I think it was Pyne) stated one of the reasons the Government were hesitating was that if they implemented equality in partner/de facto pension & welfare rights would actually decrease the pensions of current gay “couples” as two individual pension were a larger amount than the joint “spousal/partner” pension.
Thus a Government member actually positioned himself as a defender of greater advantage for gay couples than straight couples under the current regime. He refused to buy in to the argument that equal rights should apply for all. It was a weird, distorted argument!
Michael S, undoubtedly the looming election would be weighing most heavily on some Cabinet members’ minds, but I doubt Abbott and Andrews will change their vote on this after the election (if they win).
Tsk Tsk Andrews apparently fibbed on his CV. Doesn’t Kevin know that perjury is a mortal sin?
Maybe we could look at a progressive Catholic country, llike Spain, where Same-sex marriage has been legal for two years now.
Yes Jon, and Christopher Pyne is just another Bishops’ Pawn in Howard’s morally vacuous government (although not in cabinet).
Pyne’s real remit, as Minister for the Aged, is to ensure that voluntary euthanasia never gets past the legislature, just as Abbott’s, as Minister for Health, is to ensure that RU486 and abortion are denied to women in trouble, and Andrew’s, as Minister for Immigration, is to demonise muslims under the guise of anti-terrorism.
That’s in addition to ensuring that homosexuality is never publicly acknowledged, and hundreds of thousands of innocent children are brainwashed into the Catholic faith at the taxpayers’ expense.
We can rely on all three of these Vatican quislings to lie to us about their real motives, spinning us some yarn about economic costs and benefits, while quietly pushing their nasty hidden agendas. Sickening.
Jon, Amanda Vanstone used a similar argument a few years ago - that same-sex couples would lose out financially. A weird argument.
Yup, they pull the ‘but they’ll lose out financially’ card, completely failing to acknowledge that what you lose on the swings you pick up on the roundabouts.
Or that they could phase in changes so that elderly couples (who don’t benefit from the Family Tax Benefit and so forth) could be compensated for the years of discrimination by getting a slightly larger pension than their hetero contemporaries.
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Gays and lesbians are also taxpayers - why should their tax dollars benefit only the heterosexual families? Come to think of it, why don’t we just cut out other “inconvenient” groups from social security benefits so as not to increase the cost to tax payers - how about the elderly, the single parents, non-whites, people with blue eyes…
The suggestion that gays and lesbians should not have equal rights because it may cost the tax payers more money reveals that the policy is based not on a rational justification but on sheer prejudice.
Great post Suz, thanks.
Sorry to wander away from the topic for a moment, but, Unsilenced, that is an awesome gravatar! (did I spell that very weird word right?) Well done!
Perhaps you could talk Kim into bringing back her great one with the wine glass, and then the two of you could team up to solve crimes whilst being very stylish and cracking the mystery in time for cocktails. I know I’d pay attention!
Really Jpz, that is quite a sexist remark to make about two dames with hot gravatars.
Back OT. Don’t Howard and co realise that rising property values show many correlations with same sex couples moving into the neigbourhood? Not offering them the same financial/property/power of attorney status under law as heterosexual couples enjoy will not enhance dreams of a comfortable and relaxed white picket fence steadily growing in equity value.
Regardless of moral issues, the Government’s stance makes no sense economically.
I find the ‘but it will cost too much’ argument to be the most offensive of any argument they could run on this issue. Frankly, I’d prefer it if they objected to it on some quasi-moral ground rather than basically admitting that they should give gays and lesbians equal rights and equal benefits from the taxation they contribute, but, you know, it’d hurt our surplus! Budget considerations–particularly when they’ve been bragging about their surplus–should never come before human rights.
Andrews is a disgrace: http://www.andrewsmustresign.com/
Follow up. A friend has posted the text of the 2005 and 2007 passport requirements and options for transgender people, and they are indeed very different. While previously someone traveling for SRS could get a temporary use passport for one year (As I have, in fact), now they will only issue a temporary passport in your birth gender - more or less making the option useless since the only reason most of us app for it is because it’s really hard traveling internationally, especially in these days of paranoia, when you are a girl with an M on her passport, or a man with an F.
On top of that, they will not grant people born overseas a full passport in their correct gender after surgery without permission from the Department of Immigration, who will not update our documentation if we are still married.
So, in practice, I will have to divorce my wife in order to hold an Australian passport. There is a small chance I will be able to slip by, as I already have a temporary passport, but going forward transgender people will not have this option.
PDF’s of the relevant sections are available on Zoe’s blog, which also has information on her own struggles with exactly this.
I reckon Rudd will do this, but not in the next term of government. This is the sort of thing that can only be done by a government just after winning a huge majority.
Finally, advocates have identified exactly which legislation they want changed and there is some degree of political organisation. Certainly, opponents are well organised, well-funded, motivated and entrenched in the political system, with leading members of both major parties as well as a significant constituency outside the major parties (e.g. Fielding First). Where is the factional chieftain - yer Bill Ludwig, yer Martin Ferguson - who’ll go in hard for the queers?
It is significant that even though Andrews is politically buggered (as it were) over Haneef, opposition to these measures could revive him politically.
The question is: are you going to get a landslide win at the next election? Will progressives will have forward momentum with the reactionaries not be in a position to stop it?
I think Labor will win the coming election with a fairly small majority, similar to the initial victories of the incumbent state governments. Even if they reduce the Coalition to a phone-box sized minority (Grandpa, what’s a phone box?), there will be reduced scope for policy adventurism except in a few fields. It’s likely that this limited scope will mean Rudd will concentrate on issues like health administration or environmental issues. There’s three years work in that at least.
In the Senate, it’s highly unlikely that numbers will switch from an absolute Coalition majority to an absolute ALP majority. Minor parties that might be likely to support anti-discrimination, such as the Democrats, are not polling well. Minor parties that are likely to oppose it are polling strongly.
This means that in his first term, Rudd will need to negotiate with a conservative Senate to get through the things he regards as important, such as health and environmental issues and goodness knows what else. Anti-discrimination measures would piss the minor parties off and give the Libs a rallying point, without any effective corollary from the progressives, and leave the big issues stymied so that Labor looks like a bunch of trendies who can’t get the big issues through.
After a competent first term, Rudd will get re-elected in a landslide, which will hopefully drown out cries that he’s sold out on things that he never really believed in. At this point, the anti-discrimination reforms go through with too long to the election after that. Let’s hope Johan van Vloten, suz and others can wait, and resist the temptation to not give a new government room to move on this.
A generation ago, this was the pattern for decriminalising homosexuality. Governments from both major parties put this legislation through immediately after landslide elections.
Contrast this with the push for a change to NSW law in 1994. A sympathetic Liberal government facing a resurgent opposition dithered: it did not oppose reform, which would have shored up conservative support, nor did it embrace reform wholeheartedly, hoping that progressives made up for the loss of conservatives. This dithering showed that they didn’t have what it took to govern. Mind you, since then Labor governments have been elected overwhelmingly with gays in Cabinet, and they did nothing on this (I said can be done, not will). Interesting to see what happens I suppose.
Andrew Elder wrote:
“The question is: are you going to get a landslide win at the next election? Will progressives will have forward momentum with the reactionaries not be in a position to stop it?”
The problem with landslide wins is that Governments potentially take actions without having thought about what might be termed “the critical issues”. It’s becoming more and more evident that John Howard’s WorkChoices may become a historic case study of that very point.
It would seem that a work breakdown structure is needed. What I mean by that is a thought process that a) thinks of everything that likely should be considered and b) understand how it all fits together.
I would much prefer to think it would be possible to break down (decompose) goals for change into smaller and smaller goals so that, this side of the next federal election, both Mr. Howard and Mr. Rudd would have the courage to initiate “greater equal treatment under Commonwealth law for same-sex couples” for the benefit of two people entering into same-sex co-dependency.
Not forgetting that so-called “equality” in practice only works in “greater than” or “less than” terms. Setting smaller goals of “Greater Equal Treatment” might result in greater equality in some ways, but still less equal treatment in other ways. However, what matters to me as a gay man in a relationship is that the Greater Equal Treatment that is implemented addresses “critical issues to me” as a priority.
What’s critical for me in somewhat less “big picture” than the opinions we’re getting in the op-ed pages.
Consider the opinion of Chris Meney, director of the Marriage and Family Office for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney:
“The continuing debate over the access of same-sex couples to social benefits and so-called entitlements is a distraction from the real issue. The real issue is not about infringement of rights. Rather, it is about what heterosexual marriage can offer society that other forms of relationships cannot.
There is no need to move down the path of providing unimpeded access to a range of benefits to any two or more people who say they are in a relationship. Simple co-dependency is not enough.”
Simple co-dependency is not enough…….in relation to what goal or sub-goal?
It makes me frustrated when certain people treat gay relationships in the “painfully narrow context” of “culture wars”, when you have a clash of big picture goals, with both sides pushing for one, ultimate unilateral decision that applies for all time.
What this does is impose the critical issues of a select few on the rest of society, with howls of “discrimination!” from the left-wing and arguments from the right about the “social benefits of discrimination”, just as Chris Meney has attempted to justify in his argument.
Yet as Paul Robinson’s book about gay conservatives called Queer Wars challenges, greater social inclusion of gays compared to the past means less need for all gays to display a united ideological front, while the same gradual change also makes it less likely “the mainstream values” of modern families are therefore threatened by a radical push of gender, sexual and political deviance. Rather, the gay community is made up of a mixture of liberal and conservative genders, sexualities and politics (just like the rest of the greater community is made up).
The answer is not to treat this latest development as a crisis (there’s not enough evidence to feel that pressured and emotional), but the answer is also not to plan towards some day of unilateral decision-making in parliament which changes policy without changing attitudes.
…From Justin
I hope this is not to OT for Suz’s OP and OK but in the US, a senator had been arrested for trying to pickup a cop in a toilet. Larry Craig has voted against bills that would have granted rights to gays and lesbians that straight people take for given. Some good commentary at Obsidian Wings.
I agree with the sentiment that it is sad that those in the closet that there is still a societal stigma on being gay. But anger that some of these will actively campaign against laws that would prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians. I’m still perplexed how the idea of homosexuality still scares the bejesus of people and turns them into irrational vehicles for intolerance.
Justin, nothing motivates right-wing recruitment and fundraising campaigns like rolling incremental changes like you describe. It is easy to stamp out hundreds of little technical amendments and small-scale “education campaigns”. There is a lot of goodwill for sweeping away discriminatory measures and you ought not take a US-style conservative governing paradigm as given. It will be necessary to outflank well-funded and tactically clever reactionaries.
While not gay myself I am tired of liberal causes being defeated because advocates underestimate the conservatives, and are reduced to either passive bemusement or else reiterating that We Are Right And They Are Wrong. Time to get clever and get some results.
Ah hell. I’m just going to start wearing a wedding dress when I go out. I saw a beautiful one at the RSPCA op shop just yesterday. Might recruit some kids from the school across the road to throw flowers in front of me when I walk.
Either way, I’m writing to my local member Swan.