Milne v Wallace, marriage equality

• Jim Wallace debates Christine Milne on gay marriage at UTAS LawFest

The Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby Jim Wallace is debating Greens Leader Christine Milne on Gay marriage at the University of Tasmania LawFest in Hobart this morning.

In reminding participants of the centrality of truth in law he said:

“Only in cutting through claim and counter claim to truth, can the rights of not just the loudest or the most powerful be guaranteed but the disenfranchised, the most marginalised, those without a voice. In this debate on same sex marriage there is such a voice – it is the voice of the child.”

Mr Wallace’s address:

ADDRESS TO THE UTAS LAWFEST
GAY MARRIAGE
5 SEP 12

Jim Wallace, Managing Director Australian Christian Lobby

Well it’s a great privilege to be able to speak to you today and all the more because what you study, the law is so much at its very heart, its purpose, synonymous with what the Christian faith places central – truth.

And if seeking truth, to know the truth in the myriad of situations the world presents is it’s motivation, then it is because the law knows that only in truth can justice be found. Only in cutting through claim and counter claim to truth, can the rights of not just the loudest or the most powerful be guaranteed but the disenfranchised, the most marginalised, those without a voice.

In this debate on same sex marriage there is such a voice – it is the voice of the child.

This child has not yet the discernment or knowledge to compete in public debate, it hasn’t the franchise to demand political favour and mandate, instead it relies on the law and its pursuit of truth. It relies on each person making and administering the law to courageously and resolutely hold truth as the higher principal.

In our secular world there is no truth more profound and of more consequence for its breaking, than the biological truth of our origin – that every one of us is conceived by the action of a man and a woman. That that genetic identity is the reason each of us is unique – this is a profound truth, but it goes further.

Unlike animals, we are not born to a mother and a father to meet only the temporary carnal needs of our infancy and to be cast out of the nest or burrow never to be seen again. Our genetic identity is central to our being, of who we are and who we will be. The love and role model of a mother and father, a male and female, are critical to our healthy nourishing and development.

Of course though we don’t live in a perfect world – it’s what Christians instead call a fallen world. It’s this imperfect state that the Church has wrestled with against tyranny and injustice, man’s inhumanity to man in slavery and the civil rights movement, abuse of power even within the Church and today daily on its streets and overseas against poverty and injustice.

This imperfect world also means every child doesn’t have its genetic parents. Some are removed from their genetic parents through death, some tyranny, some sex slavery and some divorce. But in each of these cases the law is called upon to restore a situation always in the best interests of the child, always as close as possible to what was natural. It’s not optional this best interests of the child, it’s demanded by convention and mandated by international convention.

And those best interests are only served by re establishing a situation for that child as close to the biological truth as possible, by providing for the child whose genetic parentage is broken a mother and father.

And not just that, but a mother and father that as much as the law is able to encourage, will love that child and sacrifice for its best interests as willingly as it biological parents should or would have.
Now unfortunately even with the best intent we have done this imperfectly – to the great detriment of children. Those who Jesus put on His knee and said it would be better for you to be cast into the sea with a stone around your neck than to harm one of these.

But this gay activists’ agenda now means that we do it imperfectly intentionally.

In a number of states in Australia even a single man can “get” a child through surrogacy. The child’s inalienable right to a mother sacrificed to the selfish demands of adults for a child nature wouldn’t give them.

Of course there is still a mother, but we have gay activists, including celebrity gay couples, proudly announcing they will never allow the child to know its mother because it’s their “right” to be exclusively its parents.

Their right ! This unnatural right nature never gave them in the most important, most sacred, most beautiful of functions we are blessed to participate in, the conception, nourishing and development in the mother’s womb and then birth of a child.

In the saddest cases of this, the mother who carries this child from nine months is a poor Indian woman, forced by poverty to compromise her motherhood.

But thanks to politics, the support of parties scrambling in this unholy game we’ve turned the great idea of democracy into, politicians have decided to play God and deny a child its natural right and succumb to this selfish and increasingly vitriolic voice of gay activism.

A voice so much louder than the child’s – so much more politically advantageous to satisfy when a child has no vote.

In NSW we have had fathers’ names erased from birth certificates to be replaced by a biological lie of “parent 1” and “parent 2” to satisfy the demands of gay adults.

And of course when you break the most fundamental truth of our very conception and biological identity, you have to build your whole campaign on lies to sustain it – and the campaign to create this lie on birth certificates did just that.

It was argued that children were being bullied because their birth certificates had a father on it when two mums actually picked them up. I ask you, how often you have taken your birth certificate to school, and how even less often have you found it necessary to show it to your friends.

But even more how does this argument hold when nearly 25% of children are not living with their biological parents.

Discerning truth has been a cursory exercise in our parliaments when the alternative is the vitriol and demonization of gay activism. We have allowed ourselves to cave in to bullying, to the public demonization that the anti-social media now enables.

And what does it say for truth in the Greens’ agenda when this party will fight tooth and nail for the right of every tree to “grow up” in its natural environment and yet champion the selfish agenda of adults that inevitably means through homosexual surrogacy and adoption a child is deliberately denied it’s natural environment, the environment without which it can’t enter the world, the family of a mother and father.

If the method of the law is to seek truth, then of course its purpose is justice.

In a secular world we have to ensure that everyone has justice and particularly that everyone’s human rights are protected.

This debate, like any marketing campaign has been strewn with the language of equal rights and discrimination. Its powerful emotive language but in this case it is also dishonest.

Two parliamentary enquiries have failed to identify any discrimination in any entitlement against homosexual couples. We should expect that to be the case when 84 federal laws have had over 100 amendments to ensure there is none – so the discrimination line – “Marriage Equality” is a lie – what of human rights.

In March this year the ECHR made a judgement in a case brought to it by two lesbians that gay marriage was not a human right. Now if any court was to find it was, if it was legally possible to determine it was a human right, I am sure the ECHR would have been the one to do it – but it didn’t, it specifically pronounced that it wasn’t.

But very importantly for students of the law it also said that while it wasn’t a human right, that if a government passed gay marriage law it must extend ALL the rights of marriage to those couples completely undifferentiated from heterosexual married couples.

There have been a number of legal opinions on this judgement.

Naturally it would mean that the right of stranger adoption and surrogacy, these rights that so offend nature and that trample the rights of children will be cemented forever – unable to be reversed – clearly the political aim. But they have also unsurprisingly realised that it would also mean that churches would have to provide marriage ceremonies and Christians services to gay weddings regardless of their conscience position on the issue.

Now this raises two very important and deliberately concealed aspects of this debate that I hope you will consider with the full gravity I think they deserve.

If the law is about justice and is the ultimate refuge of the most vulnerable, then it must never knowingly be creating vulnerability for the human rights of any section of society and particularly a vulnerability to their guaranteed fundamental human rights.

Freedom of religion and conscience, unlike gay marriage, are a human right – in fact they are what the UN terms a “fundamental” human right. So fundamental that the ICCPR actually says that it can’t be limited even in times of threat to the very existence of the state.

The passage of gay marriage law would create a real vulnerability to freedom of religion and conscience.

Already around the world whenever there is gay marriage legislation or any legislation which defines a homosexual union such as civil unions as “the same as marriage”, religious freedom and freedom of conscience are immediately attacked by this unreasonable gay activism, which shows a total intolerance of the rights of faith communities.

Civil celebrants declining to take gay ceremonies have lost their jobs, wedding photographers and cake makers have been hauled into court and fined for as a matter of freedom of conscience, declining requests to participate in gay weddings. Churches have been forced to conduct marriage ceremonies or blessings, as has been legislated most recently in Denmark.

Any legal profession, any legislature that truly seeks justice cannot create this vulnerability for its citizens. If the law is true to its search for truth and justice it must acknowledge what is guaranteed as a human right for faith communities – their freedom of religion and conscience.

It is one of the saddest outcomes of this gay rights campaign that we have diminished parliamentarians, both here and in the Federal parliament lowering them from Parliamentarians to activists. We have allowed the Greens to create a farce that deliberately attempts to pervert the intent of the Constitution that the federal government has responsibility for marriage.

Citizens rely on Parliamentarians to serve the intent of the law, not to play mischief with it and so reduce their confidence in it.

We have as is the tactic of the Greens, introduced farce into the Federal Parliament with four bills and two parliamentary inquiries on the same subject aiming at no less than to achieve legislation by fatigue. Waste enough of the parliament’s time that good people will simply say lets pass it and get on with the business of government.

It is little wonder to me that the latest poll shows that the public is fatiguing of the Greens.

Conclusion

I commend every one of you for your interest in the law – it is a very honourable calling.

But it is reliant on truth, to serve justice.

The breaking of truth in the process will never serve justice in an outcome.

And no truth is more fundamental or carries more implications if we break it, than the fact of our biological identity – we only have to look at the terrible consequences of the Stolen Generation to know that.

Lets not allow activists to create the need for another apology, more ruined lives, lets acknowledge the truth that marriage is between a man and a woman and no activism, no matter how well funded, well organised or aggressive, should be allowed to compromise it.

*For the audio file of the speech that Senator Milne delivered at Lawfest on marriage equality, please follow this link http://greensmps.org.au/content/audio/speech-christine-milne-delivers-speech-marriage-equality-lawfest

• Christine Milne
Australian Greens Leader

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Doorstop after Lawfest debate with Jim Wallace

Transcript

Subjects: marriage equality

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) debates that tried to engage young people about the issue.

CHRISTINE MILNE: I think it’s really important that young people come together, especially at the time where they’re choosing what career they might want to go into. This is a lawfest so the issue of marriage equality brings together how the law interacts with parliament, interacts with the community and lobbyists, so it’s a really good issue for young people to get into. What’s exciting is that young people clearly have made up their mind, they want to support a society where there is no discrimination, they have a vision for Australia which says we’re a great country, we don’t discriminate and it’s really reassuring to see that level of enthusiasm for that kind of open, generous, non-discriminatory country.

JOURNALIST: Have you been demonising the Christian lobby?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I find it interesting that the Australian Christian Lobby accuses the gay rights movement around Australia of demonising them, it’s a tactic of the right. I would urge people to look at the tweet that was put out on Anzac Day last year by Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby where he put out something on Anzac Day saying that our service men and women didn’t fight for a country for gays and for Islamic people. I think that gives you a sense of it. Also the Christian lobby accuses the gay rights movement of Nazi-like tactics, of propaganda that Goebbels would be proud of. I don’t find that you can take seriously a group of people who try to demonise gay rights activists in that way when under Hitler gays were killed, sent to concentration camps, books were burned. This is a serious debate and it needs to have argument on issues, so if there’s any demonisation going on, look to the right.

JOURNALIST: Students got quite, almost a little bit heated at the end, they’re obviously quite passionate about the issue. Do you think then if the majority in fact is for gay marriage then that’s fair for the Christian lobby to be saying that everyone who is against it is being demonise or is anti-social media to blame?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I think the issue of demonisation, I can tell you that I’ve been campaigning for gay law reform, for marriage equality for many years. The demonisation and the vile language and behaviour has come from the right. You will find many, many of the gay activists have been abused. I walked with Michael Kirby in Tasmania and he was spat upon by some of the people opposing gay law reform all those years ago so I think there needs to be a recalibration here, the people campaigning against injustice are now being further demonised by suggesting that they’re not doing it in an appropriate way. Go and look at the record, see who said what and you will soon see that most of this abuse is coming from the right.

JOURNALIST: There’s a comment made in there about health statistics, perhaps it was more unhealthy to be homosexual than to smoke, and therefore the Government shouldn’t be promoting this lifestyle. What do you make of that?

CHRISTINE MILNE: It’s a complete nonsense to suggest that governments are promoting any kind of lifestyle and also it is a complete nonsense to say that gay people are somehow going to have higher health, bad health profile and so on. This is all part of trying to suggest that there is something wrong with a person’s sexuality if they are gay. Gay people have illnesses the same as everyone else but what I know is that the mental health issues for young gay people particularly are certainly increased when discrimination occurs. Every psychologist will tell you that young people brought up being discriminated against have mental health issues about that discrimination and that’s why this is so important.

JOURNALIST: Do you think then that if any of those statistics, I mean I’m not sure what year they’re from, or even if they relate to Australia at all, but do you think if there are higher rates of suicide for example that that is actually as a direct relation to the feeling of being discriminated and bullied compared to actually the fact that their lifestyle is bad?

CHRISTINE MILNE: The thing about gay people is they want to just live in the community the same as everyone else. They want to be able to be treated equally under the law, the same as everyone else. They will have issues about employment, about health, about education the same as everyone else does. The critical thing though is that they have equal access and non-discrimination. That is the thing that’s important and by continuing to discriminate against them you actually adversely impact their health. That is the fact.

JOURNALIST: Is it true that you are arguing for a natural state for trees to exist but not for children?

CHRISTINE MILNE: The problem with the Australian Christian Lobby arguing that the Greens support trees in a natural environment but not children fails to recognise that families have changed, children are in all sorts of circumstances now, in single-parent families, they’re adopted into other families, there’s surrogacy laws, there are blended families, all kinds of things and the main thing is that children should be loved and cared for where ever they are being brought up, and that’s the issue. We’re talking here about love and care and generosity towards children regardless of the circumstances they’re in, and I think the Christian lobby, that is at the heart of Christianity actually –respect, love, tolerance, generosity, all those things should be where children are brought up and that is the ideal and whether or not the sexuality of their parents is different from others is not the issue.

• CHRISTIAN LOBBY CHIEF’S LINK BETWEEN MARRIAGE EQUALITY AND SMOKING “SHOWS DESPERATION”

Tasmanian marriage equality advocates say the Christian Lobby has dealt itself out of the same-sex marriage debate following comments by ACL chief, Jim Wallace, saying smoking is healthier than same-sex relationships.

Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said,

“Yes, there are health problems in parts of the gay and lesbian community, but they are caused by the prejudice of people like Mr Wallace and the discriminatory laws he defends.”

“Mr Wallace’s offensive remarks show how desperate he has become, and they effectively deal the Australian Christian Lobby out of the marriage equality debate.”

Mr Croome said representatives of the Australian Christian Lobby have previously linked gay equality to Nazis, paedophiles and the stolen generation.

Between January and June this year the ACL made over 120 statements condemning equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Australians but said virtually nothing about poverty or homelessness.”

Mr Wallace’s reference to gay life expectancy being 20 years shorter than the average comes from a survey of obituaries in San Francisco newspapers at the height of the AIDS crisis.

“The quoting of irrelevant and biased studies to stigmatise gay Australians is a low and desperate tactic that diminishes Mr Wallace and his cause”, Mr Croome said.

• Jim Wallace: Gay activists deliberately misleading to shut down debate

Australian Christian Lobby Managing Director Jim Wallace says gay activists have misrepresented his comments about smoking in a deliberate attempt to demonise and to shut down debate.

“I was not comparing homosexuality with smoking at all. What I was saying is that on one hand we are vocal on our discouragement of people to smoke and on the other we are suppressing public dialogue about the health risks associated with homosexuality.

“Instead of more free speech-suppressing vitriol and demonisation from the gay activists, there needs to be an open and honest debate before Parliament changes the definition of marriage,” Mr Wallace said.

He called on Tasmanian activist Rodney Croome to stop spreading misinformation to the media, and more importantly through it, to young people.

Mr Wallace said Mr Croome gave wrong information to the media yesterday which was uncritically reported without comment being sought from ACL.

In his answer to a student’s question at UTAS, Mr Wallace was referring to Canadian gay activists who in 2009 said years of legal gay marriage had not solved the health crisis in their community. http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Canadas_healthcare_system_is_homophobic_says_group-6314.aspx

“By the activists’ own admission in this submission gay marriage did not solve the mental and other chronic physical health problems associated with the gay lifestyle,” Mr Wallace said.

“Far from being out of date information we know that every year over 80 per cent of newly acquired HIV infections are the result of male homosexuality and this is verified in the 2011 report of the Kirby Institute at UNSW,” Mr Wallace said.

“2011 is about as up to date as you can get.” (See HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmissible infections in Australia Annual Surveillance Report 2011 – the Kirby Institute , UNSW http://www.kirby.unsw.edu.au/surveillance/2011-annual-surveillance-report-hiv-viral-hepatitis-stis)

“We rightly warn of the health impacts of smoking. Surely we cannot allow these aggressive activists to conceal the facts of a lifestyle that accounts for over eighty percent of new HIV cases in Australia annually.

“If we warn against smoking because it carries health dangers, we should also be warning young people in particular about activity which clearly carries health risks.”

Mr Wallace also called Mr Croome to account on the claim that gay marriage would solve the tragic rates of depression, suicide and drug use in the homosexual community.

“In the very few countries which have redefined marriage, this has not improved gay health or caused the suicide rate to drop. Massachusetts is a case in point where the tragic rate of suicide in gay teens was four times that of their heterosexual peers both four years before and four years after the legislation of gay marriage,” Mr Wallace said.

“This is not “equal love” in its health consequences, and we need to consider the message we send to young people struggling with their sexuality in according it equal status through marriage,” said Mr Wallace

“As I said yesterday, I am deeply saddened by the human suffering that is behind the poor health data of the gay community.

“This can only be addressed by looking at the real issues that cause it, not by changing the definition of marriage and certainly not by vilifying those with a different view to the activists,” Mr Wallace said.

Commenting on Mr Croome’s statement that his comments had dealt ACL out of the debate Mr Wallace said “Mr Croome would like ACL driven out of the debate as they have bullied everyone else so that they can spread their misinformation unchallenged – but we will not be.”

• GILLARD PRAISED FOR REJECTING “OFFENSIVE” CHRISTIAN LOBBY CLAIMS

Marriage Equality advocates have welcomed an announcement by the Prime Minister that she will no longer be speaking at the upcoming Australian Christian Lobby conference.

Australian Marriage Equality National Convener Alex Greenwich said:

“We thank the Prime Minister for so strongly rejecting the extremism of the Australian Christian Lobby. This news will also be welcomed by the majority of Christians and Labor voters who support marriage equality”.

The Prime Ministers announcement follows a plea from Australian Marriage Equality for her pull out of their October event, after the ACL’s Jim Wallace said yesterday that “smoking is healthier than gay marriage”.

In a statement issued by the Prime Minister, Ms Gillard said:

“I believe yesterday’s comments by Jim Wallace were offensive. To compare the health effects of smoking cigarettes with the many struggles gay and lesbian Australians endure in contemporary society is heartless and wrong.”

Mr Greenwich said the ACL continued to marginalise themselves with their obsession on opposing marriage equality in such an alarmist way:

“Australians continue to reject the tone used by the Australian Christian Lobby in this debate. It’s sad this organisation continues to misrepresent Christians and campaign on fear rather than facts”.

• Tasmanian Rainbow Labor Congratulates PM for Standing Up Against Homophobia

The Tasmanian Rainbow Labor Network has today congratulated the Prime Minister Julia Gillard for withdrawing from the forthcoming Australian Christian Lobby Conference.

Tasmanian ARLN Convenor Robbie Moore said he was thrilled that the Prime Minister is taking a stand against recent comments made by the head of the ACL Jim Wallace and that this sends a powerful message to LGBTI Australians.

“While we had concerns with the Prime Minister agreeing to speak at the conference in first place we understood that she is asked to speak at a range of events, and represent a broad range of views and we respect that,” Mr Moore said.

“However Rainbow Labor is pleased the PM has acknowledged due to the extreme and hurtful comments expressed yesterday, her attendance was now inappropriate.

“Like the Prime Minister, we have always wanted the public debate to be respectful and responsible and Rainbow Labor is proud of the way we have handled ourselves.

“Comments like those expressed by Jim Wallace only go to further spread homophobia through misinformation and should immediately be withdrawn.

“We are proud the Prime Minister has acknowledged the struggles many gay and lesbian Australians face every day. Her comments will make a difference and demonstrate that homophobia has no place in Australian Society.”

Mr Moore said under Prime Minister Gillard, a number of achievements had been made to improve the lives of LGBTI Australians, including extending the Government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme to same-sex couples and developing our first National LGBTI Aged Care Strategy.

“We look forward to working with the PM and Federal Labor on continuing to advance the cause of LGBTI Australians and make sure we deliver on the ALP platform that supports marriage equality.”