I receive media releases from Australia Marriage Equality (AME) to see what they are up to and today they I received a release titled: ‘AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT CONFIRMS CHURCHES WILL NOT HAVE TO MARRY SAME-SEX COUPLES’.
The Australian Parliament today passed the following motion from Andrew Wilkie:
“Should the Marriage Act be amended to allow same-sex marriages the amendments should ensure the Marriage Act imposes no obligation on a minister of religion to solemnise such marriages.”
In other words the Parliament passed a motion saying that if marriage equality passes, religious organisations will not have to perform them. It’s still okay for them to discriminate.
Hearing that I thought I would get condemnation from AME. But, no, this is that they had to say:
“Today’s motion confirms that people of faith have nothing to fear from marriage equality.”
“Parliament has made it crystal clear that it will not force religious celebrants to act against their religious values and that churches will continue to be able to define marriage as they choose.”
Yep, AME are celebrating discrimination.
This is a clear tactical move from AME to help get religious organisations on side. Apparently, if we can do as much as we can to ameliorate the concerns of religious conservatives then it will be easier for us to get marriage equality passed through Parliament. On the face of it, it is a good tactic.
But, at some point we have to ask where is the line?
Whilst this motion may calm some religious organisations, in celebrating it what we are now saying is ‘it’s okay religious organisations, we don’t mind if you discriminate against us. You can continue to be bigots.’
Whilst doing this may swing a few votes in our direction, in the long run, well beyond the point where marriage equality is passed, what it does is promote the idea that homophobia in religious organiastions is still okay. In saying, ‘it’s okay, you can continue to discriminate against us when it comes to marriage’ what we are really saying is ‘you can continue to use religion to be homophobic.’ This will have impacts well beyond same-sex marriage, whether it is through religious queers having to continue to face homophobia in their churches and places of worship or through religious organisations being to able to feel comfortable in preaching homophobia.
Marriage equality is by no means the only goal of the queer movement. Yet, today what we saw was marriage equality advocates sacrifice other elements of the queer movement to get their goal. Whilst they’re doing a pretty good job of getting marriage on the agenda, I’m getting to the point now where I am really questioning whether the long-term impact is actually going to be more negative than positive.