News & Comment
'From the south cometh everything that is precious'
The Pope's attacks on same-sex marriage will echo in this year's federal election.
At their annual conference in Adelaide at the weekend, Australia’s Quakers voted to support same-sex marriage, becoming the first mainstream Australian Christian denomination to do so.
The Quakers may be a small denomination, but on matters of social justice they have very often led where other churches later followed.
As Alex Greenwich from Australian Marriage Equality notes, the Quaker decision challenges the two-dimensional view of marriage equality as simply a matter of gays v Christians.
Evan Gallagher, a partner in the Quaker’s first same-sex marriage in Canberra in 2007, also draws out the broader implications of the decision.
He remind us a) that debates on same-sex marriage don’t have to be acrimonious, and b) important changes like this are often build on the work of many people over a long period of time.
“A lot of people I spoke to last week before the decision expressed a strong sense of 'Why are we still discussing this?'. It was just the right time for the decision to be made since most of us have long since moved beyond thinking there is any question about what should be done. The preparatory discussion at Yearly Meeting was actually filled with joyful laughter and a strong sense of unity, which I could not have predicted. At the Formal Session, we were aware of how big a decision this was but no objections were raised and it went through with full support.
“In the lead up to this decision, over the last few months I had spoken my fellow Young Friends (Quakers from 16 to early 30s) about how we still hadn't clarified the position nationally. This surprised many of them and it was actually the Young Friends who brought this question forward for consideration last week. We were not sure how it would be received, but we felt we should expect the best of our fellow Quakers and put the question to them simply and with love.
“In the larger context, there have been thirty-five years of discussion and discernment leading to this point since Quakers first called for removal of discrimination against homosexuals in 1975. Those who have been part of this discussion since the beginning have told me there were some very difficult and occasionally highly charged moments over this time. I doubt the decision could have been reached so easily last Friday without the decades of patient discussion and sometimes emotionally draining hard work that led up to it.”
*
Unfortunately, the Pope’s declaration that marriage equality is "an attack" on Creation, made at the same time as the Quaker decision, has drawn much more attention.
The Pope is reacting to recent support for marriage equality in some unlikely parts of the Catholic world – Portugal, Mexico City and the Argentinian state of Tierra del Fuego.
Some people find it remarkable that marriage equality is making progress in such places when it has stalled in what are generally regarded as global centres of progressive politics like California and New York.
Not me. I’ve always argued that change begins at the periphery - where mass culture grips the neck of innovation less tightly - and moves from there to the centre.
There’s nowhere further from the northern hemisphere centres of mass culture than Tierra del Fuego.
As Oscar Wilde reminds us in his dark and ethereal fairy tale, The Fisherman's Soul, “From the south cometh everything that is precious".
What’s also significant about the Pope’s statement is that he has now completely abandoned arguments against homosexuality, and instead fallen back on the new ideology of gender dualism – the notion that there is an essential divergence and complementarity of the sexes which is the foundation of God’s Plan, human destiny, institutions like marriage, and the happiness of every one of us.
St Paul and Leviticus are out the window, and instead the Garden of Eden is rolled out to make the case that Adam was never meant to marry Steve.
**
Of course, what hasn’t changed is that a) a celibate old man in a musty palace on the other side of the world has the gall to tell me and you who to love, and b) there are plenty of people on this side of the world who think that’s okay!
Conservative Catholic commentators, Angela Shanahan and Christopher Pearson, spent the Xmas-NY break hammering Kevin Rudd for “breaking his promise” to Christian lobbyists by allowing the ACT have a legally-recognised ceremony for civil partners.
They’re convinced “ignoring the Christian heartland’s core concerns” (Shanahan, Weekend Australia, 26.12) will “have a high electoral cost among those evangelicals in marginal seats” (Pearson, Weekend Australian, 9.1).
This sounds ridiculous. As if a mega-church soccer mum in Castle Hill will judge Rudd on the legal standing of the vows two female public servants exchange on Black Mountain.
Over the break the same point was made more substantially by academics analysing the result of the 2007 federal election.
They believe the influence of the religious right has been over-stated.
But their analysis has been criticised for taking politicians at their word when they say their policies aren’t God-driven, instead of looking at the policies themselves (including knee-jerk opposition to same-sex marriage).
Unfortunately, I have to agree. There was a bi-partisan rush for conservative Christian votes at the last federal election, and there will be again at this year’s election, especially with Tony Abbott as Opposition leader.
Be sure that Abbott will take up the refrain of Shanahan and Pearson – “Rudd broke his promise” – and take it up so often that vows taken in Canberra will echo loud and clear, if not in Castle Hill then at least in the ears of jumpy Labor strategists.
Be equally sure that, as a result, Rudd will muzzle support for marriage equality within his own party with equal vigour.
***
In other news,
Another target of the Pope’s comments is the landmark US court hearing that began yesterday in San Francisco into the legitimacy of the California plebiscite against same-sex marriage.
Given the likelihood the matter will find its way to the US Supreme Court, the case is seen as making or breaking the US marriage equality movement.
[ Email This Article ]
Comments
One way or another the gay marriage issue is going to end up in the USA Supreme Court, Now the danger is that the Supreme court is dominated by consertives and it seems unlikely at this stage that the Americans will gain marriage equality though the Supreme Court and the consertives know this. My understanding is that the consertives want to push the issue of marriage equality to the Supreme court because decisions there cannot be appealed and if we lose we are pretty much back to square one and its likely to be a huge setback for gay marriage world wide. So the GLBT americans need to keep the marrige issue out of the Supreme court for a few more years.
I think a lot of people will be enrolling in Spanish and Portuguese language classes. For American couples, south of the border will become a stampede if more South and Central American countries introduce marriage equality.
Australia is a lost cause. I see no hope whilst Kevin Rudd is the Prime Minister and regressive policies in regard to homosexuality will be put quickly in place if Abbott and his religious henchmen come to power! Shockingly, Australia had not commented in any way to the political situations affecting homosexuals in Malawi, Uganda or Rwanda.
I am ashamed at times of my country and it seems that the Australian population are 'happy' with our Parliaments being filled with 'religious' Members.
I think that there are many unhappy times ahead!
Brenton, I know what your saying. The GLBT people in the USA have a simlar problem where most GLBT people really only have the choice of the Democratic Party to vote for as the Republicans seem hell bent on taking away GLBT rights.
Anyway I hoping that the ALP does not move further to the right. Currenly I cant see the ALP moving too far right as the left faction is still very powerfull as the majority on the front bench are left wing or are left leaning, even though Rudd is right wing. When the ALP right faction becomes more powerful is the time we should worry.
