Menzies House

Gay marriage obsession - losing momentum?

Beyond the euphoria of Gay Marriage supporters, inconvenient statistics remain - rarely reported. Ben-Peter Terpstra explains. GC.Ed.@L.

The media-approved seven per cent

Clearly, the world isn’t as pro-gay marriage as Australia’s establishment media. With only 14 of the world’s 195 nation states allowing same-sex partners to marry, your average “gay marriage” state belongs to an experimental minority. We’re talking eccentric social-engineering islands. Together, they make up the seven per cent.

So your average gay-marriage state looks like…? In short, the sociological answer is…very white.  Such nations tend to be relatively small, overwhelmingly Caucasian, and frighteningly bureaucratic. Think, legalistic Belgium for a good example. 

Nevertheless, media elites boast that gay-marriage nations are “ahead of history,” implying that white-majority nations are morally superior, even inherently enlightened (a curious position for self-styled multiculturalists to hold). 

So, are they? Are the Belgians more evolved than, say, the Japanese, even though Japan can boast of lower separation/divorce rates and fewer designer fatherless families?

British MPs back gay marriage

BRITISH MPs have voted in favour of controversial legislation allowing gay marriage despite fierce opposition from members of Prime Minister David Cameron's own party.

The move puts Britain on track to join the 10 countries that allow same-sex couples to marry, but Mr Cameron had the embarrassment of seeing half of his Conservative legislators refusing to back him.

Read more:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/british-mps-back-gay-marriage/story-e6frg6so-1226571282763

Wombs for rent, ten bucks a day

Knee-jerk reaction laws intended to placate minorities usually incurs collateral damage. But unintended consequences cannot and should not be excused when it comes to fulfilling irresponsible dreams for parenthood. Children are not puppies to be returned to the pet shop when they become inconvenient. Their minds and bodies are a lifetime commitment. GC.Ed.

One aspect of proposed same-sex marriage legislation is slowly percolating into the room like the smell that nobody admits to.
The fact is that homosexual males who want to be fathers need a young woman to be a surrogate mother.
Where will these women come from?
There is another kind of legislation or law at work here – the Law of Supply and Demand – a law that applied before the Egyptians, and which has never been repealed. And the answer to the question is – wherever the wombs are cheapest.
Of course, there are other aspects – there has to be good medical attention, state-of-the-art gynecological services.
Of course, of course.
And there is a place where the wombs are cheapest, where doctors are
available, where laws are elastic.
India.
They may have a s’house cricket team, but they have doctors experienced in IVF – and millions and millions of impoverished young women.
The surrogate motherhood industry in India is worth well over $2 billion
a year, and growing.

Gays Against “Gay Marriage” (The Remix)

Ben-Peter Terpstra returns to the Menzies House fold with his appraisal of  marriage redefined.

To paraphrase Ann Coulter: Our (right-wing) gays are smarter and more stylish than their (left-wing) gays. Indeed, we had more proof of this last week when the openly gay Liberal Senator Dean Smith helped to defeat same-sex marriage.

Or as he stressed: “By not agreeing to same sex marriage, I’m not choosing to endorse discrimination against my fellow gay and lesbian Australians, or to be disrespectful to their domestic relationships... instead for me, it’s an honest acknowledgement of the special and unique characteristics of the union described as marriage.”

I think he was wearing Armani. But of more historical interest, Labor’s patronising bill was defeated in the House of Representatives 98 votes to 42.

Perhaps defending traditional marriage is inevitable. As, for example, Doug Mainwaring wrote in The Washington Post, “Same-sex relationships are different from heterosexual relationships, and gay men and lesbians need to accept that and design their own tradition.”

Don’t defend marriage, deregulate it

Henry Innis argues we need to get the government out of marriage:

The gay marriage debate is once again raging in Australia. It’s an issue which is pervasive in the minds of many, and stands as one of the great moral divides that exists in today’s political landscape. We can see the arguments made for preserving the traditional family unit, just as the arguments for ending the divisions between relationships.

 But really, that’s not what this argument should be about. This argument should be about asking why a particular group, in this case the LGBT community and their supporters, are advocates of a further intrusion by the state on their lives.

 Let’s look at the current status quo: currently, the government defines the terms, relationship and even the stringent regulation of how a committed, long term relationship ought to function. This is, to my mind, a shocking indictment of the addiction to government that has emerged in our culture.

 So let me propose an alternative: don’t legislate gay marriage, and abolish the Marriage Act entirely. It seems bordering on ridiculous that a bunch of grown adults, capable of committing themselves to another, need their hands held as to the terms and definitions of what that commitment will be.

It’s up to us to end the debate in terms of giving the government yet more authority over the people it governs. Let’s turn our heads to how we can get government out of more individual decisions and commitments. 

Henry Innis is a Vice President of the Sydney University Liberal Club. He "dabbles in entrepreneurial pursuits" and writes in his spare time, and can be found on twitter @henryinnis

Sen. Bernardi's Now-Infamous Speech

Here is the full text of Senator Bernardi's speech on proposed ammendments to the Commonwealth Marriage Act:

NOTE: Menzies House has no editorial position on this matter, and we have published numerous pieces in favour of same sex marriage, opposing same sex marriage, and even calling for the privitisation of marriage. We are reposting this speech simply in the interests of furthering debate and so that people can read Senator Bernardi's comments firsthand - Tim Andrews, Managing Editor. 

I have spoken many times in this place about the importance of traditional marriage. In fact, I spoke about marriage in my maiden speech in this place over six years ago. In that speech I said:

Marriage has been reserved as a sacred bond between a man and a woman across times, across cultures and across very different religious beliefs. Marriage is the very foundation of the family, and the family is the basic unit of society. Thus marriage is a personal relationship with public significance and we are right to recognise this in our laws.

I have been and always will be a strong supporter of traditional marriage and its current definition, being a union between a man and a woman. Marriage is accorded a special place in our society because it is a union that is orientated towards having children, thereby ensuring the continuation of our population and civilisation. Society benefits from marriage, so marriage is accorded benefits by society. At the base level marriage is concerned about what is best for society, rather than being concerned about the so-called rights of the individual. Changing the definition of marriage would indeed change the focus of the institution itself. It would put the focus on the desire of adults, as opposed to having the focus on the production and nurturing of an environment for the raising of children for the benefit of society.

I know that not every marriage has children but marriage is a foundation for the family unit upon which our society is built. It has proven itself as the most sustainable and effective social support and training environment for our future generations. I recall columnist Miranda Devine quoted a UK Family Court judge in 2010 in which he noted that family breakdown is the cause of most social ills and that, despite its faults, marriage should be restored as the gold standard and social stigma should be reapplied to those who destroy family life.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies has found that children of married couples benefit from marriage because they have higher levels of social, emotional and educational development in comparison with children who do not live in that traditional environment. Married mothers are more likely to be employed or hold a university degree and married-couple families are less likely to come up against financial problems. While the authors of the research were keen to stress that this is because of a family's financial situation and the educational qualifications of the mother, it does give me cause to wonder: doesn't marriage itself help to provide financial stability and better outcomes? That seems to be a case for opening marriage up to any environment and to any union of two people, as Senator Cameron said, who happen to love each other, but in a family environment it is children who should be the primary concern and children benefit from having both a male and a female role model living in a house—two people that love each other in a permanent union.

Would a Libertarian sleep with Tony and Julia?

Alex Greenwich, the National Convener of Australian Marriage Equality, argues that libertarians who oppose state-sanctioned marriage should still support same-sex marriage proposals: 

Recently the NSW Upper House passed a motion calling on the federal government to amend the Marriage Act to allow same-sex couples to marry. It passed with the support of seven Coalition MPs, who were a mix of conservatives, tradionalists, and libertarians all advocating for the reform from their individual standpoint and representing the views of their constituents.

What many found puzzling was that Liberal libertarian Peter Phelps voted against the motion on the basis that we should privatise marriage and thereby reduce government interference in personal life.

Brendan O'Neill took Phelp's case one step further in the Australian in April. He argued that legalising same-sex marriage would open the door to government interference in an area traditionally off limits to the state - interpersonal and family relationships. To him, same-sex marriage would be such a radical "re-shaping" of cultural institutions that properly exist outside state control that it would effectively be a state takeover of these institutions (an argument I find offensive because it assumes same-sex relationships are fundamentally irreconcilable with traditional ideas of family and marriage).

Their case against same-sex marriage was satirised by a Labor colleague of Mr Phelps during the NSW debate. He said, “there are those here who believe in small government, government so small it only fits into the bedrooms of same-sex couples”.

Of course there are more serious issues at stake than that. Peter Phelps and Brendan O’Neill’s vision of the state abolishing all its rules and regulations for personal relationships is a noble one. But it is so politically untenable that it's hard not to see another agenda at play here; the use of libertarian language to dodge a hard political choice.

Libertarians engaging in this debate should see same-sex marriage as a step towards removing unwanted state interference, not a step away.

Catherine Deveny: Jim Wallance & Fred Nile Should "Such Each Others C**ks"

Former Age columnist Catherine Denvy shows once again the maturity, nuance and sophistication of the intellectual left:

Charming.

h/t Weekend Libertarian