Australia now, for the first time in our history, has a sitting Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Senate leader in favour of gay marriage.
It’s icing on a multi-layered victory cake for the LGBTI community, following the passage of legislation through the federal Parliament earlier this week to make discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status unlawful under federal anti-discrimination laws — though religious exemptions still apply in all areas other than aged-care services.
Just as the leadership battle was wrapping up last night, there also came news of the landmark rulings in the US Supreme Court striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s “Prop8” gay marriage ban.
The sweeping changes to marriage law in the US over the past year follow US President Barack Obama’s change of heart on same-sex marriage, and many would argue his public statement in support has been a significant part of that success.
Here in Australia, our newly sworn-in Prime Minister has undergone his own “evolution” on the issue. It was a long, controversial and personal road that led to Rudd posting a lengthy statement on his website in May detailing his new-found support:
“I believe the secular Australian state should be able to recognise same sex marriage. For me, this change in position has come about as a result of a lot of reflection, over a long period of time, including conversations with good people grappling with deep questions of life, s-xuality and faith.”
Rudd, a Christian, attributed much of his new position to a gay former political staffer — and Pentecostal — who made him rethink what constitutes a “credible Christian view of same-sex marriage”:
“[I]f we were today to adhere to a literalist rendition of the Christian scriptures, the 21st century would be a deeply troubling place, and the list of legitimized social oppressions would be disturbingly long.”
It’s a Christian perspective somewhat antithetical to the one held by Rudd’s elder sister, Loree, who first brought her brother’s views on the subject into the headlines in 2011. Loree Rudd quit the ALP when the party voted to enshrine support for marriage equality in its platform during its 2011 national conference. She wanted the issue put to a referendum and said there was a “global gay gestapo” that fed propaganda to lobby for marriage equality. She said at the time:
“The whole concept of equality comes from the Bible, from the sacred scriptures. All people are equal before God, but not all relationships.”
In July 2012, three marriage equality advocates, including former Australian Medical Association boss Kerryn Phelps, claimed Rudd had told them during the 2011 national conference that gay marriage “would have gone through” if he were still prime minister. They also claimed he said the reason Julia Gillard was in power was due to a deal she did with “the Australian Christian Lobby and [Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees national secretary] Joe De Bruyn”. De Bruyn has been an outspoken gay marriage opponent.
Rudd denied their version of the conversation, which reportedly took place at a party held by gay marriage supporters celebrating the party platform victory.
In any case, Rudd voted against Labor MP Stephen Jones’ same-sex marriage bill in September 2012. Whatever he might or might not have been saying privately, his public stance was clear. His change of heart last month raises plenty of questions about the issue’s future in Parliament. As we move towards the next election, the LGBTI community will be watching and hoping Rudd pledges to finish the work he began with his landmark same-sex relationship reforms in 2008.
It seems highly unlikely he would force Labor MPs to vote against their conscience on gay marriage in any future Parliament. He also said last month that he didn’t intend to take a leadership role on the issue, but that was as a backbencher and not as prime minister.
One day ago the national leaders of both major parties were firmly against any change to the Marriage Act. Following the US Supreme Court decision and a likely final vote in favour of full marriage rights in the UK in the coming weeks, Rudd now has the opportunity to make this a significant point of difference with both the Opposition Leader and his Labor predecessor.
*Drew Sheldrick is the editorial manager of CCH Parliament’s Political Alert service and the former national editor of gay and lesbian newspaper the Star Observer. He tweets at @DrewBoyTweets.
It would be nice to see sites like Crikey use the term marriage equality rather than “gay” marriage which excludes the Bi, Trans and Intersex people who will also benefit from a change to the law.
If one wanted to enjoy righteous resentment might one not target gay activists whose egocentrism has led to diversion of otherwise sensible politician’s attention from the real interests of Australia’s diminishing number of net taxpayers even considered as nobly charitable supporters of all who are less fortunate than themselves.
Why do spouses get so much of the family wealth and government assistance in privileged form without any relation to the production and nurtuging of the next generation of Australians in which we nearly all have an interest? If that issue was faced clearly we wouldn’t see the weakminded and weakkneed falling for equality propaganda which is really all about money. Oh, yes “respect”. Really? If gay friends coming to dinner announced that they had now got married I would expect it to be with a giggle about their place cards being Mr and Mrs but they hadn’t decided who should have which or, if they were about to get “married” for them to say that we needn’t put them next to each other as an engaged couple because, after all, they had now been engaged for ten years. Can anyone serious say the equality issue is anything other than a money matter and one which entails the typical or average gay couple getting more from the “marriage” tag than heterosexuals?
They will, presumably, get another expensive benefit, namely the services of the Family Court and associated specialist paraphernalia and professional expertise. What justification is there for other taxpayers providing that for people who enter into a totally unenforceable contract to live together?
And now for the serious bit if one thinks that gay marriage will be sorted and done with. What happens when a senior public service pensioner (for one example of someone with plenty of income to fight over) “marries” a 20 year old youth (or change sexes mutatis mutandis) so as to entitle him to a large indexed pension for perhaps 70 years and what if that nominal spouse is a grandson as a nice bit of estate planning (the grandson having already agreed to split the benefits from the spouse’s estate and private super fund tax free with other family members)? No doubt the geniuses who made it possible in 2004 for the seriously rich to pop $1 million into each ex-nuptial sprogs super fund to accumulate for decades and produce tax free pensions of tens of millions of dollars if one does the maths and assumes no populist revulsion leads to the goal posts being moved again, no doubt those geniuses will say it is OK.