Plebiscite - They Must Be Afraid They’ll Lose

What is the matter with the gays? They want same-sex marriage, don’t they? Why don’t they want a plebiscite? Why are they so afraid of it? Are they scared they’ll lose it?

This is a very common sentiment to be read in the marriage equality debate in Australia. Here's why it's wrong.

While there are some very sound arguments against holding a marriage equality plebiscite, including cost ($160 million), the fact it is non-binding (politicians can ignore it and some have said they will) and the fact there will still have to be a free vote in the Parliament after all the trouble the nation has been put to, LGBTI people have another set of concerns. To suggest that the LGBTI community is fearful of a plebiscite because we're worried we’ll lose it is very wide of the mark. There are some important reasons why we oppose it, including philosophical, social and personal, but none of them include the idea we're worried we'll lose it.

1.      The plebiscite was created by opponents of marriage equality. It is not part of the national debate because we all thought it was a great idea to get the conversation going. Far from it. Put simply, the plebiscite was conceived, birthed and nurtured by Tony Abbott, the implacable enemy of marriage equality, whose antipathy to gays is well-known and documented. Supported by a cabal of ultra-conservatives fighting to keep their ascendancy in the LNP (Abetz, Andrews, Bernardi and Christensen), they have stamped their names all over this debate and have openly stated they will ignore the vote if it goes against them. They instituted it for one reason and one reason only: in order to delay a vote in the Parliament as an interim strategy so they could kill it off totally further down the track. 

  

2.      The LGBTI community does not want this plebiscite. It's about us and we don’t want it. A recent poll shows that almost all LGBTI people oppose having the plebiscite. How would you feel if you didn't want to be evaluated but it was forced on you? You'd probably feel like us: upset, angry, frustrated, devalued. We were told by the Government that it was a plebiscite or nothing. But as we moved forward in the debate, many of us realised that this was a false dichotomy. It’s not a plebiscite or nothing. There are alternatives, political and social. You have to remember that the LGBTI community is a minority, and a minority that has a long association with persecution. It is very easy for the majority to jackboot over the group with fewer numbers or less power. This can be done with any minorities: LGBTI, disabled, ethnic, religious, unemployed, youth, the aged etc. But a modern society does not do that; or at least aspires not to do that. The way we treat minorities is often held up as the criterion by which a society is judged as being fair and sophisticated. To the extent it treats its minorities poorly, it is deemed a less compassionate and sophisticated society. The way we treat minorities is the way that we ourselves can be treated by others should circumstances be different.

3.     Marriage equality is about equal treatment under the law. And equal treatment should never be at the whim of a popular opinion poll. It should be enshrined in legislation. Our push for marriage equality is not hard to understand. We are good citizens, we make a huge contribution in every field of endeavour, we pay our taxes, we keep the social contract and we want to be treated equally under the law. This means we want to be able to have the choice to marry and have the social affirmation that such a relationship brings should we want to. Equality under the law. That’s it. Nothing else. We see equality under the law as a human rights issue, not an opinion poll issue. So does the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The proposed change to the Marriage Act to extend the right of marriage to same-sex partners so that we can be treated equally with everyone else is for the Parliament to decide as the High Court has already pronounced.

4.      The question of marriage equality is not appropriate for a public opinion poll. The worth of our relationships should not be up for evaluation by the Australian populace. Australia is made up of many and varied opinions with many vestiges of homophobia, gay bigotry and even gay hate. The ACL and other fundamentalists believe that being gay is a sin, an abomination and against nature. It is not right that they be given the opportunity to evaluate gay relationships when they could not possibly understand them and are implacably opposed to them. No. It is no-one’s business whether two people get married apart from the couple themselves. It is their business alone. Two straight people contemplating marriage would be aghast if they had to pass a national plebiscite test to obtain permission. In fact, a recent poll indicates just that: a clear majority of straight people said they would feel very uncomfortable having to face a plebiscite over their own marriage.

Let me elucidate this point. Let's say hypothetically that a proposal for a national plebiscite were put to the nation to evaluate whether:

·         couples, where the woman is over the age of 30, are not permitted to have children; or

·         people who have not been born in Australia are to be to be taxed at a 10% higher rate than everyone else; or

·         smokers be denied hospital treatment paid for by the public purse.

There are Australians who would fervently agree with each of these propositions. But if you were in one of those categories, the cry would go up and there would be marching in the streets. "How dare you propose public evaluation of these personal issues. It is an outrage" would be the response. But the plebiscite proponent could say, "What are you worried about? What could be more democratic than letting the people have their say?"
"BECAUSE", you would shout ferociously, "IT'S NOT A MATTER FOR THE PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRATIC QUESTION. OUR PERSONAL LIVES ARE NOT FODDER FOR A PUBLIC OPINION POLL. THE NATION’S SOCIAL COHESION IS NOT TO BE PUT TO A VOTE. IT'S NOT AN APPROPRIATE ISSUE TO BE PUT TO THE PEOPLE." And you would be right. None of the above hypotheticals are appropriate for plebiscite. Gay people are saying exactly the same thing about our right to marry our partners. It is not an appropriate question to be put to a public opinion poll. It is demeaning and humiliating.

5.      A plebiscite will be harmful to individuals and families. We are very fearful of the harm a plebiscite debate will cause, not only to the LGBTI community, but to the fabric of the nation itself. It will open up a voluble nasty bitter campaign from opponents who will not hesitate to conflate marriage equality issues with other issues. It will force gay people to have to defend ourselves constantly. Posters and advertisements from opponents will be paraded in front of us on daily basis. This happened in Ireland and campaigners have stated to Australian MPs here that it was absolutely brutal. Irish psychologists have reported increased numbers of very distressed people. Gay people know that the Prime Minister is being either disingenuous or deluded when he says the debate here will be respectful. He obviously has not seen or heard some of the stuff that is out there already if he believes that. Children in same-sex parented families do not need to go through such nastiness. And when the campaign begins officially, it will only get more heated and worse in every way. The LGBTI community does not need this. We are already a persecuted group by the Church and other groups. We are tired of the oppression and utterly reject the legitimisation of it in a plebiscite campaign.

6.      A plebiscite will be divisive to the nation. Australia will be riven by such a divisive debate and LGBTI issues could be contaminated as always being problematic, which they are not. Australia is usually seen as a fair and just society, one of the most entirely successful nations on the planet. Setting one group over another will never be a good thing for our social cohesion. It defies belief that it is being contemplated.

-------------------------------------------

Marriage equality is a step of social progress whose time has come. It is inevitable in Australia at some point in the future that same-sex couples will be able to marry. Religious and political conservatives are determined to stymie it any way they can and in so doing are making the lives of LGBTI people miserable and unhappy. We leave them to the judgment of the people and to their own consciences. Gay people are made to feel not valued and unworthy in this hurtful proposition. There are already enough MPs in the House of Representatives (at last count 84 where 76 is a majority) and 41 in the Senate (where 39 is a majority) to pass the legislation easily. We could have marriage equality by the end of next week and save ourselves all the harm, all the hurt, all the divisiveness and $160 million to boot, if there was just the political will and even just a modicum of values-based leadership.

So you see, the LGBTI community opposes a plebiscite not because we're scared we'd lose it, but because of the philosophical and practical consequences that such a debate would mean for us. The plebiscite itself? On the numbers, most would agree that it would pass. But at what cost? So much hurt. So much destruction. Vulnerable young people subjected to hate and invalidation.

So many gay people now are saying what I'm saying. Let's abandon or block the plebiscite and if the Government won't allow the Parliament to debate it and have a free vote, then I'm happy to wait until the next election to turf the whole lot of them out. And if that means three years, then three years it is. I'd rather have the New Zealand experience of the Parliament of the people voting 'Yes' with the gallery and MPs bursting into the traditional love song Pokarekare ana than the filth and ugliness that a plebiscite would open us up to. The New Zealand experience should be the Australian experience.