Marriage and the State: Antipodean Edition
John Howard almost immediately took up George Bush’s cause in speaking out against gay and lesbian marriage, but he’s stolen a march on the States by actually introducing a bill to amend existing legislation to exclude the non-heterosexual population from being married, including a clause to allow Australia to deny recognition of the legal marital status of gay and lesbian couples from such countries where their rights are recognized. As reported by Michael Darragh in Living in Australia, the Labour Party is working to ensure the legislation doesn’t make it past Senate review, although Tanya Plibersek’s report of the Party’s strategy sounds a bit dicey to me. MP Plibersek’s analysis, that this is a typical Howard ploy to politicize an issue that offers no threat to reasonable-minded people, is, I think, spot-on. Howard needs distractions from the real issues, and until something better comes along, this one fits him out well as a tough conservative determined to preserve Australia’s way of life. Too bad he’s 50 years behind the times. We appreciate Mr. Darragh’s reportage and follow-through with his Member of Parliament.