Booklet makes me feel my family is inferior

UNDER the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act it is illegal to make public statements that offend, insult or humiliate people on the basis of sexuality.

I believe the Catholic Church’s booklet, Don’t Mess with Marriage, violates this law. Distributed through Catholic schools this year, the booklet pays lip service to “respect” for same-sex attracted people, but scratch the surface and the message is very different.

The message I get from the booklet is very clear — same-sex attracted people are not “whole” people, same-sex relationships are just “friendships”, that the children of same-sex couples are not “healthy”, and our aspiration to be treated fairly is a threat to social stability and “messes with kids”.

The booklet effectively says not only that same-sex attracted people are estranged from faith, family and society, but that we are a threat to it.

Taken together, the messages in the booklet dehumanise and demonise same-sex attracted people and our families.

This is far more demoralising for same-sex attracted people than simply being called “queer” or “poof”.

The church’s “respect” for same-sex partners is icing on a very bitter cake.

As a partner in a loving, long-term same-sex relationship, raised in a staunchly Catholic family and now bringing up a young child, I find the negative messages in the booklet offensive and insulting.

The booklet tells my partner and I our relationship is inferior, unworthy of the respect and recognition afforded heterosexual couples. It tells the child we’re raising that her family is second rate, and we’re “messing” with her life.

The messages in the booklet will have a particularly devastating effect on Catholic school students who are same-sex attracted or the children of same-sex couples.

That’s why I have received many complaints, about the booklet, from friends and family members who have children at Catholic schools in Tasmania.

Unfortunately, they do not feel able to take action themselves.

In their stead, I have decided to make a complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner.

This has not been an easy decision. I was recently endorsed as a Greens candidate in the Federal Election and will be accused of having engaged in a political stunt.

But I have a much longer record of speaking up against sexual and gender discrimination, and see this complaint as a continuation of that work.

I will also be accused of trying to stifle the Catholic Church’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

As a human rights advocate, I wholeheartedly support freedom of speech, but with every right comes a responsibility not to abuse this right by harming others.

The Catholic Church’s freedom of speech must be weighed against the right of same-sex attracted young people to a safe and supportive school environment free from the prejudice, stigma, discrimination and bullying the booklet could foster.

I also respect the freedom of different religions to hold their own beliefs, but like freedom of speech, religious freedom is not absolute.

In a secular, plural society religious freedom must sometimes give way to the civil law, which in this case is very clear.

If the Catholic Church does not like the law, it is free to lobby against it.

If it believes it has not broken the law, it is free to make its case before the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner.

If anything, the church should welcome my complaint as an opportunity to vindicate itself.

What the church is not free to do is break the law and expect not to be held to account.

Freedom of religion and expression are not get-out-of-jail-free cards.

Every Tasmanian has a duty to uphold the law of their island home.

By taking a complaint against the Don’t Mess with Marriage booklet, I am discharging that duty.

Martine Delaney is a transgender rights advocate and Greens candidate for the Federal Election. She lives in a same-sex relationship and is raising a child.

First published as a Mercury Talking Point, here

• Martine Delaney in Comments: Big G, I’m a little tired of the misrepresentation. I publicly announced I would take this Anti-Discrimination complaint well before I knew I’d been endorsed as a Greens candidate. No connection, even if you need to think so. And, the Archbishop didn’t distribute the booklet only to Catholics – nor was that, apparently, his intention. At several points, including the cover, it announces it is addressed to all Australians. Also, why else would the Church have published it online?