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- Category:
- News
- Author:
- Harley Dennett
- Posted:
- Wednesday, 6 August 2008
The Australian Christian Lobby supports a model that would see gay couples recognised as de facto under the law.
It is one of an overwhelming majority of submissions to the first Senate inquiry into the Rudd Government’s equality reforms that supports the model. Only a quarter of the 400 submissions oppposed legal de facto recognition.
But the Coalition-forced inquiry has subjected same-sex couples to more homophobic bigotry, with some religious groups attacking same-sex parents and their ability to have long-term relationships.
“Superannuation entitlements … should not be tied in any way to private ‘couple relationships’. This terminology is merely a euphemism for immoral same-sex relationships and constitutes yet another attack on the sanctity of marriage,” one form letter stated.
The Festival of Light and Australian Family Association accused same-sex couples of having “significant detrimental outcomes” on their children and “having no shared life beyond their sexual relationship”.
“Both male homosexual and lesbian relationships are significantly more unstable than marriage, with lesbian relationships breaking up within the first eight years at over three times the rate of marriages,” Family Voice Australia submitted.
Some religious groups, including the Australian Christian Lobby and Uniting Justice Australia, supported same-sex de facto equality and the proposed bill either substantially or in full.
Gay activist Rodney Croome said the low number of anti-gay form letters was probably because the inquiry was not dealing with gay marriage.
“At the same time I think there’s much less concern among social conservatives about same-sex marriage than there was four years ago, so it’s harder to galvanise on that issue as well,” he said.
“The issue is more mainstream now, more widely discussed — it’s not as threatening to many people.”
The inquiry’s first hearing in Sydney on Tuesday was repeatedly drawn to the issue of recognition of interdependents — not included in the Rudd Government’s proposed legislation.
NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby co-convenor Emily Gray said the group was not devaluing interdependent non-couple rel-ationships, but such relationships were fundamentally different from loving de facto couples and their entitlements from such should be dealt with in a separate bill.
“Couples don’t only have rights, but also responsiblities — a caring relationship is different,” Gray said. “Interdependency also has a more onerous obligation to qualify.”
De facto recognition for same-sex couples was well understood, Law Council of Australia director Scott Chareneka said, but interdependency had no recogn-ition in common or state law.
Tags: de facto, entitlements, GLRL, relationship recognition, same-sex couples, senate inquiry, superannuation
August 8th, 2008 @ 8:03 am
Well hasn’t Brendan Nelson got egg on his face now! This was only referred to a senate committe in the first place after frantic press releases from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) promoting third-class “interdependant” status & they frantically pressured Nelson into opposing defacto & putting us into insulting inderdependant status instead. And NOW, the ACL have backflipped & support defacto!!! WTF? So can we now just scrap all the senate committee’s please! (and can someone pls bring Brendan up to speed with the backflip the ACL have done on him!! … so now Nelson now looks more extreme than the Australian Christian Lobby!!!! hahaha!)
August 8th, 2008 @ 10:01 am
And how did we treat the Christians last month? Lesbian kissing demonstrations and bad-taste tshirts.
August 11th, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
Well how munificent of the ACL to give us their “blessing”.
Who needs them? Bloody god-botherers, we saw what they’re capable of and responsible for during pope Dorothy’s visit last month.
What hypocrites, with evidence of their miserable short comings and offences against innocent kids going back centuries they still hold themselves up to the community as virtuous, honest and forgiving.
When will the deluded wake up and see what creeps these frauds are!
August 12th, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
I am not going to be fooled for one second by both the christian orginisations and the liberal party.