The Adventures of QueerPenguin

Don't Tell Us About It Janet #2

Predictable as she is off-topic, Tell-Us-About-It Janet fires off her next Lib Party press release posing as an editorial column.

No mention, of course, about the Howard government giving true libertarianism (her supposed political alignment) a bad name by pissing all over the ACT's self-governing autonomy. In fact, last year in an email reply to an earlier QP response to a TUAIJ column, Janet informed me that "democracy is indeed grand". Obviously, however, it's not so grand when it's the democracy of the residents of the ACT (who voted strongly in favour of the Stanhope government in 2004 even when their pro-same-sex couple policy was explicitly outlined) involved.

And jumping on board with the Australian Christian Lobby, Janet tells us that the Tasmanian model is "a sensible and fair reform", infinitely preferable to the Stanhope model. But what's the bet she didn't think this way in 2003 before the Tasmanian Relationships Act was actually enacted? ACL head Jim Wallace sure as hell didn't.

Funny how attitudes change when something becomes entrenched and accepted law, isn't it? I guess that's why opponents of civil rights and liberties fight so hard at the enactment stage.

Her argument is join-the-dots stuff: Gay marriage ----> gay adoption ----> death of society, etc. This particular slippery slope argument usually concludes with warnings over polygamy and/or beastiality also being legalised, which she's managed to resist, but otherwise she can't help herself:

"If the philosophical case for gay marriage is messy, the practical consequences are downright scary. Once you say that gay marriage and traditional marriage are legally the same, certain things follow."

*yawn*

What can I say? Spain didn't look like a particularly scary place to me when I visited there last year. Canada's not exactly a Wes Craven movie. Belgium? Netherlands? About as terrifying as a blancmange post-legalised same-sex marriage, I reckon.

Then, onto the next chestnut: same-sex adoption (again, a SEPARATE ISSUE to civil unions) is about selfish homosexual adults seeking children as trophies and denying them their God-given right (I assume she believes the Big Man's involved) to a mother and a father:

"A society that so readily disregards the role of mother and father is embarking on a dangerous social experiment that clashes with biology and human nature. It is an experiment premised on the rights of adults to have a child, not those of a child to have a father and a mother. "

Yes, because it's so selfish of same-sex couples to make an uneqivocal decision, in the face of much adversity, to deliberately bring a child into the world who, unlike the accidental and unplanned consequences of so many random heterosexual encounters, will be 100% loved, wanted and well-provided for.

"Once again, there is much sweet talk about love. Children in same-sex marriages may be surrounded by love. But deprived of a mother or father, we simply don't know enough about the outcomes for those children reared in gay marriages."

Actually, we do. If the Janets of the world actually deigned to meet same-sex families and their kids, sit down at the adults' table while their respective kids played together in the backyard, we'd see how children being reared in same-sex families are turning out pretty respectably. We'd see that they're not all being raised by militant dykes to become man-hating separatists - well, not the kids of same-sex couples I know anyway. But that particular reality just does not sit with the "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!" hysteria.

I'm sure Janet believes she's being tremendously clever by paraphrasing Oscar Wilde in her column's title, "The love we dare not let wed", but in reality Oscar would be turning in his grave at his infinitely wiser words being bastardised by a "writer" who could barely trim his toe nails. This is perhaps the greatest insult to be found in this silly and irrelevant piece.

Perhaps her opening statement is the most revealing:

"Let me make a prediction. In about 30 years, we will be shaking our heads at yet another failed social experiment: same-sex marriage."

No, in 30 years we'll be wondering why we ever even bothered resisting same-sex marriage, just like we wonder now why 40 years ago we bothered resisting inter-racial marriages or, indeed, racial desegregation.

Because the historical Janet Albrechtsen equivalents were doing precisely this, as they have always done - resisting the inevitable. They opposed decriminalisation of homosexuality 30 years ago, they opposed removal of legal discrimination against same-sex couples in state laws 10 years ago and they argue against relationship equality now. And each time, history shows them up as the redundant (though admittedly at times cumbersome) obstacles they are.

God love them for giving it a fair shot, though. If nothing else, it gives the rest of us a good laugh.

posted by Sam @ Wednesday, June 14, 2006