The Adventures of QueerPenguin

Very Strange Bedfellows

Barry and Jose have been up the North Coast the last few days in an orgy of Smug Couple Mini-Breakiness. So sue me, I'm happy. I mean, Barry's happy.

Anyway, that's why QP postings have been non-existent for the last few days. Today's is my column as I catch up with the work that's piled up in my absence. Or, more accurately, as I catch up on the many means of procrastination I have devised to avoid work that piles up. You get the gist.


The Returned and Services League might be the last organisation one would expect to be an ally of the queer community in the battle for relationship equality.

It certainly came as a shock to me to discover the RSL is supporting federal government law reform that will allow partners of Australian servicemen and women in same-sex relationships to have equal entitlements as heterosexual partners.

Of course, the support is not absolute and the legislative reforms are not comprehensive. The RSL President, Major-General Bill Crews, made clear that his organisation does not champion legal recognition of homosexual relationships – a rather meaningless statement in light of what they’re supporting – and the partnership recognition will still not extend to superannuation, veterans’ affairs pensions and compensation. Crews also believes that this endorsement, resolved by the RSL’s policy advisory group, does not have the broad support of its members.

The reason behind the Howard government’s about-face is somewhat unclear. Perhaps this is a concession to appease the understandable outrage many queer people felt when the government directly acknowledged same-sex couples in legislature solely for the prospect of detaining partners of suspected terrorists, as part of its sweeping anti-terror laws. So long as the government insists on denying same-sex couples legally-defined “spouse” status in federal legislation gaping holes will continue to exist, as such couples must prove the unnecessarily complicated factor of interdependency in their relationship to claim any kinds of benefits.

That said, however, this is a significant gain and another step along the inevitable, if painfully protracted, path of full legal recognition of same-sex couples in Australia.

Not to downplay the hard work of campaigners within the Australian Defence Force to raise this issue and provide a solution, but one can only assume the government would not have committed to this reform without the RSL’s blessing. Perhaps due to generational change, the RSL now does not appear so resistant to queer sexuality as it would have been under the leadership of the extremist former President Bruce Ruxton.

Or maybe this is just a case of a group of reasonably intelligent people adopting a common sense position. When irrelevant and harmful rhetoric is removed from the debate, the principle of same-sex couples seeking equal rights is not difficult to grasp or even endorse. It has nothing to do with the imposition of an unhealthy lifestyle, or undermining the sanctity of marriage, or threatening The Family, or any other of the hysterical catchphrases churned out by our more militant opponents.

If the RSL is prepared to see past these smokescreens, why won’t our government?

posted by Sam @ Tuesday, October 25, 2005