Converted to marriage

Gay and lesbian couples in Australia did have valid complaints concerning a range of discriminatory practices, now largely eliminated. Discrimination concerning surviving partner superannuation entitlements was largely overcome by legislation of the Rudd government, when the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws Superannuation) Bill 2008 was passed. The Rudd Government also passed the Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures) Bill 2008 to allow same-sex and de facto couples access to the federal Family Court on property and maintenance matters following relationship breakdown. Adoption and fostering rights have also been extended to same-sex couples, but to a mixed degree. Adoption rights are available to same-sex couples in the NSW, WA and the ACT and will shortly become law in Tasmania. Same-sex couples have the right to foster in the other jurisdictions. Spouse accompanied travel entitlements, where they exist, have (especially in the public sector) also been largely but not entirely made available to same-sex couples.

Some of the changes to remove discrimination might well have been more sensibly made through different, more fundamental changes, to the benefit concerned. Spouse accompanied travel paid by an employer (for example) had its origins in the days when a stay-at-home wife supported her husband's career for little reward. Those days are gone and it would have made more sense to achieve equality through abolishing such benefits entirely by rolling them into salary, than to extend them to same-sex couples.

The extension of surviving partner superannuation benefits to same-sex couples is also debatable as the best means of eliminating discrimination. The genesis of such entitlements goes back to the days where married women generally left the paid workforce and there was a special need to provide for them, because wives generally outlived their husbands and would have had no superannuation of their own. With married women now generally having their own (albeit generally less valuable) superannuation, what started as a means of providing a reduced pension for a widow has ended up as a system that often provides two pensions to a surviving partner of either sex, which was never intended. Extending surviving partner superannuation to same-sex couples did overcome the discrimination against that group but has only served to further underline the inferior superannuation benefits available to singles, who generally contribute according to an identical formula but whose heirs receive much less valuable benefits.

Same sex couples don't have the automatic inheritance rights (from their partners) as married couples. Many claim that, in the absence of a will, it is desirable that the surviving same-sex partner should have the same intestacy rights as surviving marriage partners (which means that, in the absence of adult children, the surviving partner would get everything). I don't agree.

A key difference between married heterosexual couples and same-sex couples is that married heterosexual couples generally have the same natural heirs (namely their children), while same-sex couples don't. Consequently, if the normal rules of intestacy apply, there is a strong risk that the blood relatives of the first deceased same-sex partner will permanently lose their inheritance to the relatives of the longer lived partner. There is a case for providing an automatic life interest in a shared home and personal assets to a surviving same-sex partner (this would require separate intestacy rules) but clearly only a will can ensure that the actual wishes of the deceased are carried out.

In conclusion, it will be obvious that I don't support same-sex marriage, as a constituent element within conventional marriage, on the grounds that it is both unnecessary and does not particularly suit the circumstances of same-sex couples (who already share in most of the financial entitlements available to married couples). The demands for its introduction seem to be a ruse aimed at piggybacking a respected institution for opposite-sex couples to gain recognition for groups that commonly denigrated and eschewed marriage in the past.

I am, on the other hand, not particularly opposed to same-sex couples having their own separate institution (civil unions?), with rules suiting their own special needs, and having the potential to develop whatever prestige and respect it may attract over the longer term. Any attempt to appropriate the term "marriage", I believe, would be grossly insensitive, especially in the context of marriage having religious significance. The term "same-sex marriage" is about as contradictory as "Halal Pork Butchery" and both are likely to give offence.