A committed Catholic gay man, whose integrity I admire and whose hurt from ongoing homophobia I feel, recently asked me to sign a letter to Prime Minister Tony Abbott urging that Coalition members be granted a conscience vote and that the Commonwealth Marriage Act be amended promptly to include same sex marriage. He assured me that any change to the law would accommodate religious celebrants who would not celebrate gay weddings, and for religious reasons.
I declined his request, assuring him my prayers and a commitment to ongoing dialogue.
I have long claimed that our federal politicians should have a conscience vote on same sex marriage. The Labor Party muddied the waters at their national conference last month by cobbling together a compromise motion allowing a conscience vote only until 2019, with members then being bound to support same sex marriage after the election after next.
Given Labor's abandonment of a conscience vote until the matter is finally resolved on the floor of the Parliament, the Coalition is now more free to make its own political calculations about the utility of a conscience vote on its side of the chamber.
Given developments in countries like Ireland and the USA, I have accepted the inevitability that civil marriage in Australia will ultimately be redefined to include same sex couples. But advocates for change need to concede the point made by church leaders in their own letter to Abbott on 5 June 2015:
Far from being unusual in the international community for not supporting 'same-sex marriage', Australia's definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman is consistent with that of the vast majority of world nations, who represent over 91 per cent of the global population.
To date, only 21 of the 193 member states of the United Nations have changed their legal definition of marriage to incorporate same-sex unions.
Given the increasing number of children being brought up by same sex couples, it is desirable that the state take away any social stigma against same sex parents. Given the ageing population, the state has an interest in recognising and protecting long term relationships of same sex couples who care for each other. Given the harmful effects of homophobia, it has an interest in encouraging broad community acceptance of those members who are homosexual. Laws and policies can help in this regard.
It is one thing for Commonwealth law to recognise same sex unions as marriages. It is