Anglican Mainstream

By John Heard, Herald Sun

SAME sex-attracted men and women in Australia simply don’t want gay marriages.

This is the hard truth that undercuts some of the more recent, last-minute appeals for gay marriage, civil unions and other forms of gay "relationship recognition" in the ACT and elsewhere.

Despite near-universal apathy, if not outright opposition, from various community groups, segments and leaders, gay marriage is too often assumed to be an issue for gay men and lesbians in Australia.

It is not. The fact is, a mistaken view of the popularity of gay marriage with gay Australians continues to influence the debate.

When actually asked, for instance, as they were during the Private Lives Report produced by La Trobe University in 2006, most of the gay partners surveyed indicated that they had no intention of ever "formalising’ their relationships.

Indeed, there proved to be no evidence that the majority of same sex-attracted men in Australia were in any kind of relationship at all, let alone one that would conform to basic community ideas about the longevity, exclusivity and life-affirming nature of marriage.

So, if Australian gay men are in no rush to form stable, long-term relationships, and certainly don’t form unions of the kind most Australians would recognise as having the marks of marriage, who is behind the push for gay marriage, and the idea that it is a key issue for gay Australians?

Certainly not ordinary, same sex-attracted Australians.

Most of us would agree with gay rights pioneer Professor Dennis Altman, who recently criticised a few activists’ fixation on "gay marriage" and described the whole push as "self-indulgent crap".

Certainly, the research findings, and these community attitudes align with the latest data out of Tasmania, and New Zealand, where the numbers of relationships registered under the various schemes available in those places are just over 100, and less than 1500 respectively.

The very people who are supposed to be clamouring for relationship recognition are literally staying away in droves.

As a same sex-attracted man, and a Catholic, I must say I read Muriel Porter’s comments about gay Christians apparently needing to keep their identity secret from church, family, and friends (The Australian, May 6, 2008), and wondered if she’d actually spoken to any committed gay Christians, or same sex-attracted Catholics.

Could it be that Porter, and others, while aiming for compassion and fellow-feeling, have instead fallen into shallow political correctness and adopted patronising attitudes that don’t conform with the lived experience and expressed desires of real same sex-attracted Australians?

Rather, and too often, heterosexual politicians, commentators and others have preferred to listen to self-appointed gay community spokespeople, usually activists on the extreme fringe, rather than consulting widely to get the views of diverse and dynamic same sex-attracted Australians.

Same sex-attracted Australians are too easily co-opted as pro-gay marriage and therefore one-issue voters, easily snared by any Left-leaning, liberal candidate who puts in a word for gay marriage.

On the other hand, conservative politicians have too often taken the activists at face value, and assumed all gay and lesbian Australians adhere to the same system of beliefs, and want the same political outcomes.

- John Heard is a Melbourne writer

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.