Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose totally the Marriage Amendment Bill 2012. Once again we are confronted with social-engineering attempts that focus on the self-indulgent homosexual movement's push for same-sex marriage. Society is expected to take for granted claims—driven by bullying tactics of activist minority groups—of discrimination and inequality over marriage,. The question needs to be asked: how are homosexuals discriminated against when no homosexual is denied marriage under Australian law and marital requirements are applicable equally to every Australian resident without exception? Isn't declining to accept marital rules a self-discriminating free choice and not a social or legal discrimination? De facto heterosexual couples are not discriminated against for choosing to refuse marriage, so what is the special obligation or need for homosexuals to marry?

History and culture have never regarded a pair of same-gendered individuals as a co-habiting couple deserving a title or a special minority status. It goes without saying that if marriage were redefined to include same-sex couples, then adult-consenting incest, polyandry, polygamy or group marriage relationships could not be excluded without once again raising issues of discrimination. In 2003, Peter Spriggs wrote an article titled 'What's wrong with letting same-sex couples "marry?"' printed in issue No, 256 Family Research Council, Washington DC. He said:

… abolishing the option of marital eligibility and legalising same gender marriage would create a special, exclusive, classificatory right no one else has and discriminate the social order. Everyone including homosexuals has the same equal option "to marry a person of the opposite gender who is of age, sane, not married and not a close relative".

If our biological make-up is physiologically, functionally and psychologically designed for complementary intimacy with the opposite gender, why do homosexuals possessing heterosexual gender choose biologically incompatible partners?

Homosexuals do have the human right to self-determination, including the right to choose incompatible partners, but where is their right to demand society accept biologically and socially incompatible partner choices for marriage? Since the often publicly expressed words 'right to marriage' do not exist under the Australian Constitution, the claims and demands are flawed and driven by activist propaganda to influence public sympathy for ineligible self-chosen relationships. I think it abominable that gay activists continue to focus on and manipulate civil rights strategies to justify claims for same-sex marriage and keep using discrimination, inequality platforms and homophobic accusations to intimidate politicians and the public. Noted American lesbian and literary figure Camille Paglia quite succinctly argued in 1974:

Nature exists whether … like it or not. And in nature, procreation is the single relentless … norm … our sexual bodies were designed for reproduction.

She also argued, surprisingly, that gay men had a right to marry but to a heterosexual woman.

This bill is about future muzzling of churches, requiring primary and secondary schools and even kindergartens to indoctrinate children that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual lifestyles, as well as having two mothers and two fathers is no different from having a mother and father. Marriage is a public, not a private, institution; it is not a socially engineered niche for a minority making up its own terms and conditions that, as has been shown, share absolutely no common values with marriage.

A number of my parliamentary colleagues have come into this place today and spoken in this debate. In fact, one colleague said to me while we were coming up in the lift: 'You've got nothing to lose—you're retiring.' I will put on record, as I have done in the past, that this is not the first time that I have defended the sanctity of marriage. I will continue to do so now and into the future; whether I am a member of parliament or not is irrelevant. I do that because constituents have overwhelmingly supported me in my defence of the sanctity of marriage. As I said at the outset: I oppose this Marriage Amendment Bill in its entirety.

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