This classy site - The Potential Wedding Album - supports same-sex marriage as a legal option here in Australia. You might want to have a look and give it your support and/or pass on the link. Successive federal governments in Australia have not only failed to provide for same-sex marriage; they have gone out of their way to discourage "too-marriage-like" legal statuses even in state and territory jurisdictions. All this is simply pandering to social conservatism, in my view. As long as we are going to have such a legal status as "marriage" in our society - maybe we shouldn't, but that change won't happen any time soon - I see no rational basis for restricting it to straight couples. The restriction is socially unnecessary, and it's gratuitously insulting to gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals. It casts them as second-class citizens with second-class relationships.
It's time to move on and get rid of this offensive restriction.
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
1 comment:
Hello, I'm new to posting on this blog, which I discovered through some articles on richarddawkins.net. I'm very much enjoying reading your various posts.
After reading this post I visited 'The Potential Wedding Album' site and left a message of support, the substance of which was as follows:
I wholeheartedly support the existence of a legally recognised ceremony of commitment that is the same for heterosexual and homosexual couples. I am a bisexual woman engaged to marry my male partner. As a UK citizen, if my chosen life-partner had been female, she and I would have been able to become 'civilly partnered'. This is a tremendous and significant step away from centuries of restriction and discrimination, but still less than ideal.
As atheists, my partner and I will be having a civil ceremony. The reason most commonly understood for the restriction of marriage to straight couples in the UK is its Judeo-Christian cultural heritage. Well, if even civil marriage is still somehow a religious institution, than I don't want any of it, thanks! Can't my boyfriend and I be civilly partnered too? However, if marriage can be an entirely secular legal commitment, then I simply cannot see a reason for the gender of participants to even be relevant.
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