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 The federal government’s law reforms don’t go far enough, Antoun Issa writes.
It is, indeed, a step in the right direction: 68 Commonwealth laws that had previously discriminated against homosexuals will be amended under a reform bill before the Senate. For a country that has traditionally been slow, even reluctant, to award homosexuals full human rights, the Same Sex Relationships Bill is a positive development.
Nevertheless, the Labor-proposed bill won’t signal much of a difference to a homosexual’s day-to-day life. In fact, many homosexuals probably aren’t even aware that Canberra has been debating this legislation for the past six months. Peter Stephenson, president of the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Business and Enterprise (GLOBE), agrees.
“One of the issues with the GLBTI community is [our] laissez-faire attitude,” he says. “A majority of people won’t even notice [the Same Sex Relationships Bill].”
The community’s apparent apathy to this legislation may be a result of the bill’s lack of substance. The proposed amendments target discrimination mainly in superannuation and the treatment of children of a homosexual relationship. That leaves discrimination in a range of other areas of Commonwealth law untouched, including taxation, health, immigration, and of course, marriage.
The legislation could be brushed off as a superficial attempt by the Rudd Government to improve the standings of homosexuals in Australian society, but that would undermine the importance of superannuation. The bill will give the impression to everyday Australians that Rudd is a modern-day champion of human rights, while appeasing the ever-powerful Christian-right lobby that spends its energy and resources on preventing gay rights as opposed to preventing poverty. A nice compromise.
Admittedly, the GLBTI community has debated among itself the virtue of pursuing this tiring battle to gain equality in every article governing this country. Our situation has improved dramatically over the past few decades. We walk freely, we have our districts, nightclubs, restaurants, book stores, medical clinics, film festivals – heck, we’ve even become a fashionable TV commodity.
Peter Stephenson sees our comfortable coalesce into mainstream society as, ironically, a stifling factor in our motivation to struggle for full equality.
“You look at teenagers and the early 20s, being gay is very different to when I was growing up. There may have been one or two clubs, not an underground, but it wasn’t obvious. There was no gay media, gay support, there was nothing.
“Today it’s there, and it’s fashionable to go to a gay club whether you’re straight or gay. We’re accepted as part of the gay community, we’re fashionable even, so it’s hard to motivate people on a daily basis.”
But the hard facts remain: a same-sex couple is still denied the same recognition given to the equivalent heterosexual relationship. Homosexual relationships, in the eyes of many Commonwealth acts, are classified as interdependents – the same, broad classification given to two elderly sisters who live together.
Marriage may not be on every gay individual’s mind, but it still forms the core fabric of Western society. The decades-long struggle for gay rights has been a struggle for the inclusion of homosexuals into mainstream society. We are almost there, but as long as marriage remains a fundamental component of society, then same-sex relationships should be granted the same equal recognition.
The term is irrelevant. A certificate stamped with the word marriage isn’t going to determine whether homosexual relationships exist or not. However, the legal entitlements associated with marriage still make the institution highly relevant in our society.
One Christian institution, the Uniting Church of Australia, offers a similar viewpoint in the following statement: “The understanding of marriage as a heterosexual religious and social institution should not be used as a platform from which to discriminate against same-sex couples in areas where unmarried heterosexual couples, legally recognised by the State as having a relationship equivalent to that of a marriage, are able to access financial entitlements.”
The choice to get married, be a de facto couple or remain single is entirely up to the individual. The problem for the GLBTI community is that we don’t have that choice. We only have the opportunity to lead a single life or have a watered down de facto status called interdependent.
For those of us who want to remain single, our lives couldn’t be sweeter: the law permits a homosexual to be single. But for many who have opted for the monogamous path, the long wait to have the law and society recognise their love is excruciating. Relationship recognition isn’t a selfish struggle, but a merited demand for equality.
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