If you dare to say you are opposed to homosexual marriage, you will be hated on, abused, despised, and called every name in the book. You will certainly be labelled a bigot, a homophobe, a hater, a dinosaur and then some. It goes with the territory. The other side does not argue – it just hurls abuse at those who disagree.
I have spent decades now going through the writings of the homosexual activists, seeing what they have to say on a whole range of issues, including their views on marriage. Contrary to what the lamestream media would have you believe, there is a lot of diversity of opinion on marriage.
So, who actually wants same-sex marriage then? The truth is, there has been a vigorous debate amongst homosexuals over the question of homosexual marriage over the years. Some are in favour, some are opposed, and there are many options in between. As one example, some years ago now David McCarthy of the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby puts it this way:
“Obviously while there is a lack of unanimity about gay marriage, our human rights must be the same as everyone else’s. If someone wants to get married or doesn’t want to get married, it’s their choice.”
One Australian homosexual lobby group actually split over this issue. Two committee members resigned from the New South Wales Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, claiming it had not pushed hard enough for marriage rights. But the Lobby said that marriage reform was “not a priority”.
Consider a number of quotes on this issue (just a few of many possible). An Australian lesbian said this at the time about the Prime Minister Howard’s attempts to keep marriage as the union of a man and a woman for life:
When it comes to same-sex marriages, John Howard has got us pretty well summed up. We’re not cut out for it. . . . [Heterosexuals are] welcome to it. “For life”! It’d be like sitting through one of those interminable bloody Indian films but when you get to the end it starts all over again and you can’t leave. Let’s leave marriage and other drudgery to heterosexuals. They’ve had millenniums of practice. They’re good at child-rearing and taking out the rubbish. I never wanted to be like them, even when I was one of them. . . . Surely we can come up with something better: semi-marriage or quarter-marriage, which would narrow the field down to eight. Or a casual, part-time or temporary marriage. Or even a flexitime marriage.
And the same lesbian, when asked whether open relationships work, was quite candid in her response:
I don’t know, but I know closed ones don’t. How many good, loving lesbian relationships have floundered on the rock of sexual tedium? That’s what worries me about our demands for holy matrimony because we want to be “just like them”. If we go on demanding exclusive access to those we love, our relationships will end in anger and sadness – just like theirs.
One Australian homosexual activist put it in even stronger terms:
I think gay marriage is an absolute non-starter as an issue. We have spent the last 40 years trying to get the state out of our bedrooms. Why are we now demanding recognition from John Howard? The notion of these extraordinary, creative, avant-guard gay people rushing to cover themselves in grey cardigans and join their straight cousins in the suburbs with some bureaucratic document just sh*ts me.
Another Australian homosexual said much the same: “Whether we like it or not, marriage is, as John Howard memorably said, a bedrock cultural institution for heterosexuals; and most gay men seek different rules for their relationships.” And activist Dennis Altman even said that homosexual marriage was “a great deal of self-indulgent crap,” although he later tried to tone down his remarks.
Also, a letter writer to a homosexual newspaper, commenting on Altman’s remark, concured: “Stop being selfish, and centre your efforts on bettering this world for those that still need to get recognition, acceptance and the right to survive peacefully, before you try getting the ability to get legally married so you can get legally divorced a year later.”
In a more recent piece Altman continued to decry homosexual marriage. In the article, entitled “Same-sex marriage just a sop to convention,” he said that it was just too stifling. He stated that he is “uncomfortable with an approach that seemed to buy into the most conventional morality”.
He continued, “I mourn the loss of radical critique that was central to the early gay and lesbian movement”. He said that his resistance to marriage came from a “desire to stress the particularity of homosexuality”. Because of the move to same-sex marriage, he feared that we “may be approaching the end of the homosexual”.
Another Australian homosexual was quite clear about rejecting what he considered the straitjacket of heterosexual marriage: “[F]ull recognition for same-sex marriages will encourage all those shallow promiscuous gay men to settle down in Box hill with Mr Right and breed shitzus. Speaking as a shallow promiscuous gay man, I remain sceptical about this.”
He continued,
Straight men, it seems, are quite shameless in their perverted desires, and in their enthusiasm for illicit sex of all kinds. And this after 2,000 years of the civilising influence of Christian marriage! On the evidence so far, I think it will take more than the Ontario Supreme Court [and its support of same-sex marriage] to get the majority of gay men to get married and settle down.
And another Australian homosexual offered similar thoughts: “So we don’t have ‘gay marriage’. So what?” He went on to talk about all the progress homosexuals had already been making in terms of legal and social reforms. He then said, “I’m worried that people who continue to scream for the least attainable reform now, uses our community’s political capital up on a fruitless journey. So I call on the people in our community to stop talking about gay marriage.”
And a lesbian activist in Australia made it clear that she is opposed to same-sex marriage. She does so on the grounds that marriage is a religious issue, and church and state must remain separate. She says, “I am completely against demands for the Australian government to introduce an Act for Gay Marriage.”
She continued, “We’re approaching the battle for relationship equality from the wrong direction. . . . We should be fighting for Civil Union Partnerships. It should not be a solely gay issue. This is a battle for the true separation of religion and politics.”
And here is what a Melbourne law professor and activist said about this issue:
Ultimately, it is my view – though I acknowledge that it is not a view universally shared – that lesbian and gay rights activists in Australia should not be fighting for same-sex marriage. I hold this view not because of the legal and political obstacles to same-sex marriage (although they are significant and do raise the question of best allocation of political energy), but because I consider marriage a problematic institution and one which would have negative effects on the lesbian and gay communities in Australia; negative effects that would outweigh the positive effects of same-sex marriage.
Also, listen to what Australian lesbian Helen Razer had to say about same-sex marriage
Affirming gay marriage has become a progressive reflex and there is no scope for debate. Supporting same-sex marriage is compulsory, rather like an objection to genetically modified food or a preference for buying organic. One cannot say that marriage, particularly the “gay” kind, is silly without being pelted by (conventionally grown) refuse. At the risk of upsetting the workers of the world and the biodynamic markets at which they shop, I just can’t get excited about the “right” to an institution predicated on some pretty whacko old nonsense.
She continued,
Getting hitched, expensively and blithely, is not [a pressing civil equality issue]. This is not to suggest the creation of long-term intimacy is anything short of wonderful. My own partnership of 12 years is my life’s central feat. It has been sanctioned by the years, by difficulty and by love. It will never be sanctioned by compliance to the terms of a rickety institution.
But ‘gay’ itself has become a rickety institution. Wedded to the idea of weddings, military participation and cheering on ‘out’ footballers, the visible gay culture retains all the radicalism of a radish. Marriage equality is not a truly progressive struggle but an effort to privilege one kind of relationship, long-term and monogamous, above all others. I wonder how is this going to play out, particularly for the many gay couples who have spent years finessing a feasible polygamy. Gay and progressive communities are selling up and buying into a market long since ruined. We are trading in a history rich in difference at the altar of absolute conformity.
All of these quotes I have fully documented in my book Strained Relations. Plenty more could be mentioned here. Let me offer one last example. Bernard Gaynor recently wrote about one homosexual he knows who is quite happy to go public with why he is opposed to homosexual marriage. This is what he had to say:
The one-sided same sex marriage (SSM) debate has been raging for a while now and with the postal plebiscite on SSM now confirmed for September this year, I thought it was about time I had a good think about the situation and explain why myself and my partner of 15 years will be voting NO.
Firstly, SSM is an attack on the institution of marriage itself, the foundation of our civilisation and most importantly the bedrock of our family relationships. Changing the definition of marriage paves the way for other types of relationships to be recognised and I honestly don’t think many of my fellow Australians have fully thought through or realise the consequences and ramifications of changing the definition of marriage…
Most will vote yes out of fear of offending the many homosexual people they have as friends and family.
As a gay man, my partner and I have never personally experienced any type of discrimination or homophobic behaviour because of our sexuality or relationship with each other. Both of us have been accepted into each other’s families. After 15 years I now feel that my partner’s family is my family, and my family accepts my partner as part of our family.
Homosexual relationships have the freedom to be whatever those involved want them to be. Why is there such a need to constrain that to a religious ceremony that is more than likely going to end in divorce? SSM is a step backwards for the gay community in my honest opinion.
If anything needs to be changed or redefined, maybe it should be to recognise same sex unions rather than use the term marriage…?
Marriage itself is about children. Until gay people can give birth to their partner’s children it is a non-issue for me personally.
It’s time people stopped falling for catchy slogans and obscure hashtags and start thinking of the future they are helping to create for their children and their children’s children.
After 15 years with my partner, a piece of paper and pretty ceremony will not change our relationship at all. We will still remain just as committed to each other as we always have been. Our relationship has never been defined or never will be defined by a piece of paper and a religious ceremony.
Hmm, there sure seem to be a lot of bigoted, hateful homophobes out there. Oh wait….
http://bernardgaynor.com.au/gay-man-states-hell-vote-no/
[1990 words]