The Australia of the last few years has seen religious
fundamentalism attempt to show its might by pushing its way to the head of the
pack in political and social issues. It’s not so much radical jihadism in
Australia as it is rabid evangelical fundamentalism. We’ve seen this in issues
such as religious education in schools, school chaplaincy programs,
occasionally abortion, and perhaps no-where more prominently than in the debate
over marriage equality for gay and lesbian people. We have even seen the
unedifying spectacle of leaders of Government and Opposition making the three
yearly pilgrimage to the Australian Christian Lobby’s conference and spruiking
a sanitised message for them in the hope they will support them publicly and
thus having to offer them a platform that they believe the ACL will support; as
though the ACL is the repository of all things Christian and represent the
faith across Australia – which they don’t!
Whatever happened to the idea of separation of church and
state? Isn’t that supposed to be enshrined in Australian public life for the
good of the nation? After all, haven’t we been able to avoid most of the ugly
and dangerous religious squabbles of Europe and elsewhere precisely because of
this separation?
Section 116 of the Australian Constitution specifically
refers to religion and allows for four tenets:
“The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth”.
It’s pretty great, isn’t it. It draws on, and outdoes I think, America’s First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. While America’s is specific in denying the right of a religion to be the ‘established’ or official religion of the land and denying the right of a government to stop people exercising their right to religious freedom, it stops there. Australia’s on the other hand goes a little further explicitly:
- No established religion
- No government can legislate to impose any
religious observance
- No government can legislate to prohibit the free
exercise of religious observance
- No religious test or benchmark for holding any
public office.
It is therefore not uncommon to hear some say that because
of these mighty four, that the separation of church and state is enshrined in
our Constitution. In fact, such separation is not enshrined in the Constitution
and the High Court has explicitly said so in the State Aid or Defence of
Government Schools case in 1981.
Justice Sir Ronald Wilson said:
The fact is that s.116 is a denial of
legislative power to the Commonwealth and no more … The provision therefore
cannot answer the description of a law which guarantees within Australia the
separation of church and state.
Justice Sir Ninian Stephen said s.116:
... cannot readily be viewed as a
repository of some broad statement of principle concerning the separation of
church and state, from which may be distilled the detailed consequences of such
separation.
So, s116 is merely a “denial of legislative power”, and a
welcome one, don’t get me wrong, but not a “broad statement of principle”, a
fleshed out doctrine of separation of church and state. But there is a loose
convention of behaviour that has been followed in Australia because of this
Constitutional general attitude. And it is essential that we keep such a
convention in mind when tackling social issues. I want the clergy out of
people’s bedrooms and out of people’s hearts. I want adults to be free to make
their own decisions about their own lives and not have to worry about breaking
the law. I am not a libertarian, but in this, yes, I want small government and
small church.
So why do I think s116 is a welcome statement of
delimitation? Simply this. I believe that both the church and the legislature
work best when they do not have jurisdiction over the other. Allow me to refine
that. I like the fact that people can go to church or the mosque or the temple
without fear or interference from the Government. I like the fact they can do
that without having to look over their shoulder to see who’s following them. I
like the fact that our successive Governments have the freedom to legislate for
the common good and do not have to do so from any religious premise or any
sacred text. Thus, though Fred Nile insists on calling Australia a Christian
country, and does so only because of our historical connections, in fact and in
law, we are not. And we shouldn’t be. We are not a Christian country in law.
And we are not a Christian country in the lived experience of this
multi-cultural, multi-faith secular land. There is no established religion in
Australia. While Fred Nile might be an antidisestablishmentarian, I certainly
am not (and I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting to use that word in a
serious piece of prose)!
Australia has never wanted a theocracy, a country headed up
by clerics and priests. In fact, ever since the days of Samuel Marsden ‘the
flogging parson’ of early colonial NSW times, we have had a distinct mistrust
of the clergy and the Church. We’ve seen theocracy at work in Iran and Saudi
Arabia. Clerics running the show, telling everyone what is acceptable thought
and behaviour and what is not and applying penalties and punishments for
infringements. Of course, the dominant religion in such countries gets to wield
the power. And such religious authority finds the personal lives of its
citizenry by far and away the easiest thing to target: gender, sexuality,
marriage, children, and relationships. Lots of rules around this stuff. And
lots of punishments because of those rules.
So, for me, Government free to govern for the common good of the nation, with the Church (or mosque or temple) free to enrich the spiritual
lives of people is the best way to go. That’s not to say that I think either
are necessarily doing a great job. I don’t. Both government and church could
really lift their game. However, there are two exceptions for me concerning
this necessary separation; one where I think Government should step in to the
religious life of a nation, and the other, where religion should step in and
have a say about governance.
The first is in the matter of religious coercion. This can
be either overt or covert. It can be socially approved and wrapped in
sacralised language or it can be secretive and very nasty. I am thinking here
of cults. I think there is a place for removing children from some of these
groups, and maybe even some adults in certain cases. No ‘right’ of freedom of
religious observance should protect adults indoctrinating kids into harmful
belief and practice. Removals have been done, eg., in 1987, six children were
removed from the cult The Family in Lake Eildon Victoria, and more recently in
2012, twelve children were removed from an incestuous religious cult in rural
NSW. No religion, I don’t care what it is, should have the freedom to harm
people or coerce people to remain observant for fear of leaving. If there is
physical or psychological harm visited upon adherents, there is a place for
Government and its law enforcement agencies. Such coercive behaviour is not
even remotely authentic spirituality.
The second caveat I mentioned above is when Governments are
out of step with ethical considerations, where people are glossed over or
ignored and legislation with the bottom line becomes the dominating factor,
eg., environmental concerns. Recently, we have seen religion speak truth to
power: Pope Francis on the world stage calling for a halt to unfettered
capitalism and industrialisation to the detriment of the planet in his call to
world action on climate change, and more locally, we have seen here both
Christian and Moslem clerics call for serious action on climate change to the
present Federal Government in Australia. We have also heard the Churches speak
up about indigenous rights and mental health programs for example. And so they
should.
And so to the issue of the moment. Marriage equality in Australia is the big issue right now
where the maintenance of separation of church and state is crucial. Perhaps no
other factor has caused the LGBTI community so much distress and pain as the
Christian Church. The Church in Australia is a diverse group. It is certainly
not a homogeneous entity with one set of beliefs and praxis. Rather, it is a
multitude of beliefs around the centrality of Christ as well as huge differences
in style and structure of liturgy.
However, one section of this group is the loudest and the
most strident, and for me as a result of what I see as arrogance, the most
objectionable. In their everyday vernacular, they would call themselves
‘Bible-believing Christians’ but others would call them ‘evangelical*
fundamentalists’, a group that represents for me now, all that is wrong with
religion. With an emphasis on a sola
scriptura model of Scripture that is virtually Bibliolatry and a model of
interpretation that is essentially face-value, literalist, conservative,
rejecting of scholarship that differs from their traditional view, with a focus
on a few sacred cows, plus a willingness to use it as a weapon against
dissenters, and all this favoured over any sense of human lived experience,
this crowd in times past were the ‘holy rollers’, the ‘God-botherers’, the
‘Bible bashers’ and Australians have traditionally steered well clear of them.
There is absolutely no truth other than their truth about
all matters and especially it would seem, about gay sexuality. They are not
just oppositional to marriage equality but belligerently so. I have come to
conclude after engaging them over the last few years on matters gay that they
trichotomise the world, ie., they divide it into three groups: real Christians
(them), false fake Christians (others who profess Christian spirituality but
not according to their model) and the unsaved (ever other human being in the
world that lives or who has ever lived or who will ever live who doesn’t have a
particular kind of salvation experience). And there is no budging them from
this. They will go down with the ship on this one. Jesus himself could appear
before them and say, “hey guys, you haven’t quite got it right” and they wouldn’t
listen. They are so rusted on to this model which has the Bible as their single
and only argument that they appear to me to be totally lacking any insight as
to how ridiculous, how absurd, how offensive, how rude, and how arrogant they
usually sound.
So their view of gay marriage? Totally and completely
against it and always will be. Hell will freeze over before they give a
millimetre on this. They will never agree to marriage equality because they
will never ever accept gay sexuality as being a valid life. Let me repeat what
I have oft repeated elsewhere. For them, a gay sexuality is unequivocally and
without the slightest shred of doubt: a sin, a rejection of God, a repudiation
of all things Godly and holy, selfish, indulgent, against the order of nature
and a punishment by God and deserving of eternal punishment, “for such as these
will not inherit the Kingdom of God”, a choice and a reprehensible lifestyle.
And because of this, they see our relationships as counterfeit, not real love,
fake, based in lust or deviancy and therefore, totally inferior to straight
relationhips. They will quote you chapter and verse to prove every word they
say. They will also ignore every argument against this model because of their
Bible and the way they see it. They will ignore all science, all psychology,
all biology, all genetics, all anthropology, all sociology, all history, all
scholarship. Its’ just the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the
Bible.
So when we talk about a plebiscite for all Australians to
decide whether to continue discrimination or not over marriage equality, ie.,
to treat one group of Australians differently before the law compared to the
rest of Australia, I don’t feel at all comfortable in knowing that evangelical
fundamentalists get to have a say about the nature and quality of my relationship
and those of every other gay person in the land. It’s like asking Kim Jong Un
if he feels that South Koreans need a bit more support in their defence
capabilities. Why would you ask a sworn enemy of LGBTI people to decide our
fate? I think it is wrong. And unjust. And blurring the convention of
separation of church and state.
The marriage equality debate in Australia is a fair debate
and I don’t even mind having a robust argument with opponents. But let’s not do
that on religious grounds. This is not a religious question, despite
fundamentalists declaring that it is. Half of them believe it is a
demonic force having its sway over the land and inviting the judgment of God. Seriously.
I actually mean it. But no, we are not talking about religious ceremonies or
religious observance being effected in any way. We are talking about gay people
having the right to marry their partner in an authorised civil ceremony, as do
70% of heterosexual Australians right now, and having their duly solemnised
relationship affirmed by society represented by their family and friends.
That’s all. That’s it. It’s hardly the apocalypse.
The religionists can do what they like in their churches. But
I do think that we will see the day when some churches, not all, will be happy
to marry people in their beautiful buildings too in the future. Some will, some
won’t. And some gay people would love that, and some gay people wouldn’t darken
the doorway of a church after our treatment by traditional Christianity. And I
wouldn’t blame them for a moment. But gays getting married in churches is not
what is being proposed here.
I still think the Parliament is the place for this decision.
A plebiscite will be an open invitation to the fundamentalists to pour all over
this with their objections to gay people. It is just bigotry. And wow, have you
noticed how much they don’t like being called bigots? They do not like being
called out. But yes it is bigotry; nothing less. Religious bigotry. And it is
homophobia too in many cases. As a society, we have realised that racism and
sexism are to be deplored and we all as one work to ensure they do not occur. No
religious person is tolerated offering religious rationales for racism or
bigotry. That time is gone. It is totally unacceptable. I think it is high time
we moved onto treating homophobia in the same manner. It is just not acceptable
in the twenty first century with what we now know about human sexuality, and
gay sexuality in particular, to tolerate homophobic ‘authoritative’ statements
by anyone, be they pastor or priest.
The proposal for marriage equality in Australia is not a
religious issue. It is a civil issue and a human rights issue, whose
institution should be decided by the Parliament. We should adhere to the
convention of the separation of church and state in this matter; a convention
that has served us well, and not allow fundamentalist Christians to highjack
the decision or to steer it in any meaningful way. Their myopic impoverished
spirituality has its place in their churches and their study groups and in
their own personal lives but has no place in deciding the outcome of how this
nation decides to organise itself with regard to its gay and lesbian tax-paying
citizens and how their relationships are to be recognised. I trust the good sense of
the Australian people to continue to eschew such stupidity.
*I do not mean by this that all evangelicals are
fundamentalists. Clearly, they are not. I know plenty of evangelical people
with whom I may no longer hold the same model of scripture, but who I regard as
kind and loving people and sophisticated thinkers. So this paper is not
referring to such as them.
Some Levity
To lighten the tone after that, I include a Letter to The
Editor of the Newcastle Herald by a former friend of mine who told me I was ‘a
false teacher’ and that ‘better had there been a millstone tied around my neck
and I be cast into the sea rather than I lead anyone astray’ which is precisely
what he thought I was doing. Last week, Herald journalist Joanne McCarthy interviewed
me about the local bishops’ response to marriage equality (surprisingly not bad
for senior clerics) and he wrote the letter in response. It is the usual stuff,
devoid of anything remotely sophisticated. I didn’t know that even ‘etc’ is
sinful and wrong, but apparently it is. It also peddles out the fear mongering
at the end (fundamentalists love ratcheting up the fear and retribution dial)
with a vengeful angry God judging our nation ‘to its peril’ should we allow
marriage equality. But it also had a hilarious response in the Comments section
that I just could not ignore. Whoever you are Sarcastic Sam, thank you for your
contribution.
JOANNE McCarthy declares she is annoyed that a marriage celebrant is required by our law to say, “marriage is the union of a man and a woman” (‘‘My wedding checklist’’ Herald 15/8).
However, I believe God will be happy with these words, because this is how he designed marriage to be. According to my beliefs, God invented sex. He therefore has the right to write the rules under which we should enjoy it, and he has done.
For one thing, he makes it abundantly clear in his book, the Bible, that he opposes homosexual acts.
If our law allowed marriage of a man to a man, or a woman to a woman, it would be condoning homosexual acts and therefore be at conflict with God.
Homosexual acts, along with adultery, gossip, greed, hate, lust, lying, pride, etc, are all wrong, primarily because God has decreed it to be so.
I believe setting the rules is God’s exclusive right, not ours, and any nation that changes them does so at its peril.
Sarcastic
Sam
Very well written Frank. This is easily the most lucid, compelling and
sensible argument against same sex marriage I have read. There is simply no
counter argument to the facts and sound logic you have presented. Let's see
those crazy gay marriage advocates try and dismantle this substantial argument.
I think it's game, set and match to you on this one. I can't think of any
plausible debate against the opinion you have put forward. Well done.
