Posts tagged 'gay rights'

To mark the Wheeler Centre’s Big Gay Week, Rodney Croome, campaign director of Australian Marriage Equality and an honourary lecturer in Sociology at the University of Tasmania, writes yesterday and today on marriage and gay men. Read the first part of this essay, published yesterday.

Recent whole-of-population studies provide a picture of gay men being no less – and in some studies actually more – monogamous than others. The notion that gay men are sexual experimenters is a slander from those who think it a bad thing and a conceit among those who think it good.

The fundamental similarity of gay and straight relationships comes as a surprise to ordinary Australians. Growing tolerance of same-sex relationships has seen gays and lesbians increasingly spurn inner-city ghettos and relocate to, or stay in, suburban and regional areas. In turn, this has familiarised heterosexual Australians with the daily lives of same-sex couples. An excellent example is the large factory in Hobart where my partner and several other openly-gay people work. The most remarkable thing about them is that their relationships and families are so very unremarkable in the eyes of their mainly blue-collar colleagues. Naturally, when these heterosexuals see that the lives of their gay friends and co-workers are much like theirs, they begin to ask why their legal rights aren’t too.

My assertion – that there is no relevant difference between straights and gays that would disqualify the latter from marriage as we know it – is bound to spark accusations that I am an assimilationist out to dismiss all that is good about being gay. That would be wrong. I am all for the acknowledgment and celebration of difference, where it exists. For example, on the question of Tasmanian identity, the Hobart-born Altman and I take opposite positions to the ones we hold on gay sexual identity. Altman dismisses the idea there is anything significantly different about Tasmania. I hold firmly to the view of Richard Flanagan and others that Tasmania is geographically and culturally “another country”, and a fine one at that. I also recently defended the importance of a distinct gay identity in response to Helen Razer’s assertion that there is no need for it, especially in culture and the arts where she believes it simply marginalises and trivialises the contributions of gay people.

But my case for gay distinctiveness is not one that seeks to draw a thick line between two inherently different sets of people. It is not based on the black and white view that the only choice minorities have is to be separate or the same. At best, gay men (and for that matter Tasmanians) are embellishments in the stories other people tell. We are parodied, demonised, lionised and generally not taken on our merits. Mostly, we are missing altogether. This means that, more than others, we are called on to question who we are, who others are and where we fit. We have to negotiate more boundaries and rely more on own narratives. By doing so we become more self-conscious and more conscious of others. It is the insight and cultural richness that may arise from all this which is a difference worth celebrating.

In my response to Razor I illustrated this more nuanced view of the value of identity by drawing on that period of European history that gave us Marx, Kafka, Freud and Einstein. When Europe’s Jews were released from their ghettos in the 18th and 19th centuries, I wrote, they didn’t all suddenly cease to be Jews. They were freer to identify to whatever degree they chose with their inherited ethnic and religious identity, to enrich the broader society of which they had become a part with whatever they considered valuable about this identity. The result was a contribution to western culture from the descendants of emancipated Jews that was unthinkable while the ghetto lasted, and without which the contemporary world would be unimaginably different. I imagine the same future for LGBT people. As we are freer to interact with the society around us in more complex ways, so we will also make a far richer contribution to that society than is imaginable today, a contribution drawn from but not limited by our sexual or gender identities. Integration will not mean assimilation.

So it is with same-sex marriage. Allowing same-sex couples to marry will not profoundly change marriage or gay people. Culturally and legally each has already grown to meet the other. Like other steps towards legal equality and social integration, marriage equality will mean gay people are increasingly free to contribute to society all that we are, including the experience we have gained from being excluded, and from our struggle to end that exclusion.

Helen Razer will be speaking Thursday lunchtime at the Wheeler Centre as part of the Lunchbox/Soapbox series. Her topic will be ‘Giving Up on Art’.

To mark the Wheeler Centre’s Big Gay Week, Rodney Croome, campaign director of Australian Marriage Equality and an honourary lecturer in Sociology at the University of Tasmania, writes today and tomorrow on marriage and gay men.

Writing against gay marriage in The Australian Literary Review last month, gay academic Dennis Altman had more in common with conservative Christian advocates than he may like to believe. Both are responding negatively to the demand for same-sex marriage because they share the same illusion about what marriage is and who gay men are. In a recent opinion piece Altman described marriage as a single ‘model’, “predicated on particular gender relations, monogamy and the biological link between children and parents” and gay men as engaging in “a whole range of sexual adventuring” that make male same-sex relationships “different” to heterosexual ones.

These words could just as easily have been written by Baptist theologian, Bill Muehlenberg. I should know. He and I co-authored a book about same-sex marriage last year in which we had to respond to each other’s case in detail. For both Altman and Muehlenberg, marriage is still on the cultural pedestal it occupied when they were young, the pedestal whose footing reads “the only way to legitimise love, sex and children, the only way to order the interaction of men and women, the only course our lives should take”. They also both hold to the belief that gay men are natural libertines and that gay male relationships are therefore inherently different.

Of course, where Altman and people like Muehlenberg part ways is how they judge what they perceive to be true about marriage and homosexuality. As a conservative Christian, Muehlenberg wants to shore up marriage’s pedestal and thinks unrestrained sex is immoral. As a sexual liberationist Altman wants to knock marriage down and smash it to bits, and thinks sexual liberation is fundamental to happiness. But from that divergence of opinion arises another convergence; both dislike the idea of gays marrying (although, as a supporter of human rights and legal equality, Altman is not against it). So what exactly have Altman and Muehlenberg mis-judged about marriage and gay men?

Marriage is no longer the cultural monolith it once was. The legal recognition and social acceptance of de facto relationships, civil partnerships and non-conjugal relationships means marriage is now just another way, among others, of sharing one’s life with another person.

The acceptance of childlessness, gender equity and no-fault divorce means there is no longer just one model of marriage. The decision about how to conduct a marriage now firmly in the hands of the partners to that marriage. As Fairfax columnist, Adele Horin, recently observed,

Marriage is more than ever a love match between equals, a primarily personal relationship in which partners maintain a level of independence. They organise their partnership on the basis of personal inclination rather than gender roles, although no one says that battle is won; they value the right to decide whether to have children or not. Is it any wonder that gays and lesbians are saying “Hey, that describes us”?

The general acceptance of Julia Gillard’s childless, de facto relationship is an example of this change.

Muehlenberg might condemn it. Altman may hope it spells the end of the marriage. But most Australians see it for what it really is, two people choosing to do what is right for them. It is precisely this ethos of choice which is behind popular support for marriage equality, especially among the young.

Polls show significantly higher support for same-sex marriage among the under 40s – people I call the Family Law Act Generation because they grew up with cohabitation, divorce and childlessness as legitimate options, and with gender equity a given. It makes no sense to this generation that how and if to be married should be a choice for the majority but not for the minority. Both Altman and Muehlenberg might contend that in the absence of legal incentives and cultural pressure marriage will disappear. But statistics show that marriage rates are actually up, possibly because our greater freedom to marry makes marriage more attractive, not less.

Whatever the reason, the democratising of relationship law has seen traditional marriage shift from being the only legitimate relationship to just one among others. It doesn’t mean marriage is about to disappear any more than religious tolerance in Europe in the eighteenth century brought an end to faith.

When it comes to gay male relationships, the mistake critics like Muehlenberg and Altman make is to see them as sexually exceptional. There is no credible evidence for this, as shown during the landmark gay blood donation case before the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal in 2008.

The case hinged on the question of whether gay men have uniquely different sex lives. To prove its point that gay blood donation would be dangerous, the Red Cross presented a range of studies to prove gay men are more likely to have more sexual partners, less likely to be sexually monogamous in primary relationships, and more likely to engage in risky sexual activity, than other people. The Tribunal dismissed all these studies because they were designed specifically to look at behaviour that poses a high risk of HIV infection in small, unrepresentative samples drawn from gay events, bars and sex venues. Often these samples deliberately excluded men in monogamous relationships.

Researchers like Professor Glen Elder of Vermont University have similar concerns as the Tribunal. He believes, “We have produced a body of literature about homosexual lives that tends toward the ‘exceptional’”. When Elder looked at a broader range of same-sex couples who didn’t congregate in one place and agree to be studied – those registered from across the USA under Vermont’s civil union scheme – he found, “What’s most interesting about this analysis…is the banality of the results. Civil union households simply don’t differ that much from those of the general population”.

The second part of this article will be published tomorrow.

Helen Razer will be speaking Thursday lunchtime at the Wheeler Centre as part of the Lunchbox/Soapbox series. Her topic will be ‘Giving Up on Art’.

The New Yorker is speaking up about gay marriage after the back and forth appeals in California about Proposition 8, the state’s referendum on same-sex marriage.

In the small window between the decision to allow gay marriage on 4th of August and a federal judge Vaugh Walker’s ruling that it was unconstitutional, several same-sex couples tied the knot. Others are looking to civil unions, which the article calls “marriage-lite, lacking the constricting, exalting, maddening qualities of the real thing”.

But the “m-word” still has a lot of value. The article concludes “Judge Walker found that, rather than seeking a novel right, the plaintiffs are asking California ‘to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages.’”

Image courtesy of Roman Gomez

Almost two out of three Australians identified themselves as Christians at the last census, which seems to create a large voting block and a problem for an avowedly atheist prime ministerial candidate.

Yesterday ABC’s Radio National Breakfast featured an interview with Jim Wallace, Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), who cited 19% of the population attending church once a month as having “a lot more commonalities than difference” when it comes to their religious values.

Earlier in the week Wallace appeared on ABC’s Lateline with some clear statements on the conditions for their support. Wallace said “We remain concerned that the traditional definition of marriage be maintained. And while both parties have given their commitment to that, we need to know that in the case of Labor that that will continue to stand beyond the national Labor conference, or the next national Labor conference.”

Wallace also voiced concerns about the Greens as a party “supporting euthanasia, supporting abortion, against prayers in parliament, against ISP filtering”. The Greens ‘balance of power’ status in the Senate is the envy of all minor parties, so Christian groups eye their position enviously particularly rising powers like Family First.

ACL launched a website, Australia Votes, yesterday as a handy reference for faith-based voters. The site posed questions to all the parties including Family First and the Australian Sex Party.

Along with some “no change to the existing laws” fudging by major parties, there are insights into opening Parliament with the Lord’s Prayer (“The Coalition remains firmly committed to the opening of Parliament exclusively each day with the Lord’s Prayer”) , abortion (“The Australian Labor Party supports conscience votes on issues before the federal parliament which relate to abortion”) and even cloning (Australian Sex Party: “Supports stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research, and maintains it is a vital medical issue, not a religious issue.”)

While Wallace admits in both interviews that voting on religion in contemporary Australia is limited, the lobby group claims to represent many voters based on census stats. Another group who fared well in the 2001 census were those identifying their religion as Jedi with more than 70,000 Australians claiming they followed a faith based in Star Wars. And yet no political parties currently courting the “lightsabre vote”.

Novelist Anne Rice posted a message on her Facebook page last week saying “I quit being a Christian.”

Best known for her Vampire Chronicles series, Rice’s reasons for leaving the church are not so much spiritual as secular. She used her Facebook status to directly tell her fans, “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Rice returned to Catholicism in 1998 after leaving the church when she was 18 years old. While there has been criticism from the religious press, Michael Rowe at the Huffington Post believes she has never been more of a Christian. He writes, “The undeniable fact is that the decision of this sensitive, passionate, and devout woman to leave Christianity is one that Christ himself would likely understand, even applaud.”

Gay Rights activist and today’s Lunchbox/Soapboxer, Rodney Croome has taken aim at our new Prime Minister Julia Gillard on her views on same-sex marriage in his post for ABC Unleashed.

At issue is an amendment to the Marriage Act in 2004 which banned the recognition of same-sex marriages including those made in countries where gay marriage is legal. While civil unions exist and there is some recognition of same-sex couples, Croome says they are “an unsatisfactory substitute for marriage”.

For Croome the disappointment with Gillard is greater, because while other PMs have been in marriages themselves, Gillard is not. “As a partner in a de facto relationship, Gillard understands the profound importance of couples having the choice to marry and the equally profound indignity that comes from that choice being circumscribed by prejudice or law.”

Watch Rodney Croome’s Lunchbox/Soapbox talk

The piece points to inter-racial marriages as being viewed with more tolerance than same-sex unions and how the choice to marriage is a decision about controlling your life as well as having important legal value and moral value. Croome concludes with an appeal to Gillard: “I can only hope our new Prime Minister comes to realise what a terrible injury she is inflicting, not least on the principles upon which she has founded her own personal life.”

Yesterday on 3AW radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch likened the struggle by same sex couples to legally marry to the African American protests for equal rights in the 1960s, despite his previous anti-marriage equality views.

Hinch opened by confessing that in the past he had “followed the ignorant, blinkered, almost homophobic, line without thinking it through” but has since come around to thinking of gay marriage as a question of human rights. After pointing out a number of nations where same-sex marriage was legal including Iceland’s recent prime ministerial wedding Hinch almost chanelled Martin Luther King saying “Equality will prevail. One day.”

Hinch went on to refer to recent Tweets by lesbian TV host Ruby Rose including her comment “its discrimination and I beleive we are above that its [sic] 2010”. Hinch also interviewed our Lunchbox/Soapboxer Rodney Croome.

Iceland has stolen the glory from our new female PM with their Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir becoming the first national leader to marry their same sex spouse.

Sigurdardottir married her partner writer Jonina Leosdottir on Sunday, which was the first day Iceland’s new laws allowing same sex marriage came into legislation. Though the couple have enjoyed a civil union for years, the new law allows marriage with full rights.

Iceland joins the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Portugal which all have laws allowing marriage equality. Much has been made in the media about Julia Gillard’s unmarried status, but has articulated no policy variation from Labor’s traditional stance.

The Age reports that Australian churches are moving with the times. A same-sex ceremony in a Brunswick church on the weekend included two local men. According to the article “everyone concerned carefully distanced themselves from the words ‘wedding’ or ‘marriage’. But the intent of the same-sex ‘sacred union ceremony’…was fairly clear.”