by Dr Alex Fibishenko
Is our society so blinded by religious and political activism that we forget one of the most fundamental values that we all beleived already defined us as a nation …equal rights?
Our Australian society is enriched by people from various backgrounds, and of multiple ethnicities and races. Many individual religious or cultural groups are quite unanimous in their views against certifying same-sex marriages under the umbrella of their religion or culture. Whether this is right or wrong is irrelevant, they have the right follow their customs and traditions, including the right to deny same-sex marriages under the stamp or endorsement of their individual group. We can use an analogy and look at religion or culture as a private club, which has members who voluntarily subscribe to it. Those members must follow the rules and policies of that club if they want to continue subscribing to it.
However, the question here is not whether those groups must endorse same sex marriages under the umbrella of their culture or religion. This will always be a question of policy for their own communities, members, elders and boards. The question here is whether a minority of same-sex couples should be entitled to the very freedoms and very same rights that allow those very groups to practice their own religion and follow their own traditions freely and openly.
The question here is also nothing to do with gender appropriation, or the Safe School agenda. These are completely separate, and far more complex issues that deserve scrupulous research and consultation.
It is also not a question of a family model that denies children their biological parents. Many of the children of same-sex couples are adopted, and are often saved from abandonment or dire situations, and given opportunities that would not otherwise exist for them. Sure, like any other kids they will have questions as they grow up, but the one thing they are unlikely to be confused about is the love and adoration from the parents who chose and fought to have them.
So how is it that we have come to have to debate the seemingly unquestionable question as to whether there should be equality?
Sadly it is a result of political propeganda. The lobby against marriage equality is using populous sensitivities to divert our attention away from the actual question at hand, and instead muddies the waters and confuses the issue by making it appear to be a question about the threat to our own individual beliefs, sexual orientation and way of life.
Many unassuming individuals are vulnerable to the influence of fear from the fabricated threats to our way of life, which this propaganda creates. Its typical of right wing extremism, …look at our US friends, did you ever think Trump would actually be elected president? Well, if you actually believe the propaganda, there was no other option for the survival of that nation, right? Not quite.
History shows that this exact kind of propaganda led to the darkest periods of humanity with persecution of many minorities, and at its extreme between 1938 and 1945, the systematic murders of 6 million Jews.
The information is false and is designed to instill fear from a fabricated threat as a way of justifying continued discrimination against a minority and the denial of equal rights.
Even if equality, in marriage or whichever other form, did in any way influence our own political plight, then this is the price we must be willing to pay to preserve our own freedoms and our own equlity.
I have faith in our people and look forward to proving to the world, and to our own government, that Australia is a society that stands united against discrimination in all its forms, including in the form of a denial of marriage equality.
