Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

The deregulation of sexual relationships

By Justin Jefferson - posted Tuesday, 2 June 2015


Australia should be getting government out of the business of registering people's sexual relationships, instead of increasing it by providing for the registration of homosexual unions.

The basis of the same-sex marriage movement are the claims that gays "don't have the right" to marry, or that same-sex marriage is "illegal". These claims are false. They are based on confusion about what marriage is. This is because neither church nor state has ever maintained that marriage is constituted by an act of the church or state. The position of both church and state has always been that marriage is constituted by the act of the parties in exchanging verbal commitments, which the church or state may or may not then recognise or register for their own purposes.

Contrary to popular misunderstanding, the act of marriage is the exchanging of vows, not the signing of the register or certificate.

Advertisement

Homosexuals have the same right as heterosexuals to exchange commitments; and to celebrate the formation of these unions by having witnesses, celebrants, ceremonies and parties, rings, and other such traditional surrounding formalities.

In fact homosexuals have more marriage rights than heterosexuals, since homosexuals can legally enter into multiple simultaneous unions, whereas for heterosexuals the very act of uttering the words is a criminal offence.

(The effect of the de facto relationships legislation is to put gays on substantially the same footing as straights as concerns the dissolution of marriage. It also forces the substantive legal status of marriage on people who do not want it, which would appear to be an abuse of human rights, but the "marriage equality" movement is not concerned with this.)

What gays cannot do, that straights can, is get the government to register their union. But this

a) is not marriage, and

b) only begs the question what government is doing registering people's sexual relationships in the first place.

Advertisement

Governmental registration of marriage is in fact relatively recent in the history of marriage. It started with the Marriage Acts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Contrary to the assumptions of the same-sex marriage movement, people have been getting married for hundreds and thousands of years before registration of marriage, or the church, ever existed. This fact invalidates the entire argument of the so-called "marriage equality" movement which depends on the false idea that marriage means the registration of marriage.

Before the Marriage Acts, marriage was recognised at common law. This required no notice, no witnesses, no celebrant, no registration. It just required the parties to exchange vows to take each other to spouse. The commitment had to be monogamous, exclusive, for life, and heterosexual. In this, the common law followed the canon law.

This raises the question why modern Australians, homosexual or otherwise, should be dictated to in our private lives by the inflexible opinions of long-dead sex-negative mediaeval monks. The same-sex marriage movement takes issue with only the last condition of the definition of marriage – heterosexuality – and seeks to preserve the rest. But its own rationale does not justify this discrimination. If there is any principle behind the movement for same-sex marriage on which all Australians seem to be in broad agreement, it is that people's sexuality is their own private business. So it is time we take a critical look at all the components of the definition: and what the State has marriage law for.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

9 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Justin Jefferson is an Australian who wishes to show that social co-operation is best and fairest when based in respect for individual freedom.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Justin Jefferson

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 9 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy