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Age readers reject Stephen Fielding’s bigoted remarks about same-sex couples.
Published 28 November 2009
Lunacy’s last standSTEVE Fielding’s remarks that gay marriage is akin to incest (The Age, 27 November) indicate that he is a “great Christian” in a long line of “great Christians”.
I grew up in South Africa, where other “great Christians” determined that it was an abomination in the sight of God for a black man to marry a white woman, or vice versa. They argued that if God had intended such “miscegenation” he would have made us all coffee coloured. They quoted passages from the Bible about the “hewers of wood and the drawers of water” to prove that black people were ordained by God to be servants, not husbands or wives to white people.
They presented other arguments about how red ants and black ants maintain separate nests, supposed further indication that black people and white people (there were no red people) should not marry.
Unfortunately for Fielding, his brethren on the lunatic fringe of Christianity no longer run South Africa. He could, however, relocate to “Oranje”, where the inbred hate-mongers, bigots, racists and homophobes have made their last stand. There he will be celebrated for his “great Christian beliefs”.
And I thought the central doctrine of Christ’s teaching was one of love. That must be why I’m not a “great Christian”. Something for which I am eternally grateful.
Andy Schmulow, Melbourne
Published 28 November 2009
Recognition timeIT IS time to stop hiding behind damaging analogies to support institutionalised discrimination against same-sex couples.
Power over legal marriage belongs to the Commonwealth. However, the question of same-sex marriage raises a human rights issue that affects residents of all states and territories who live in committed same-sex relationships.
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission believes that formal relationship recognition should be available to same-sex couples on an equal basis with opposite-sex couples.
A civil union scheme alone would not provide full equality. In the absence of a right to civil marriage, such a scheme would continue to reinforce the different value placed on relationships between opposite-sex and same-sex couples.
The principle of equality therefore requires that any formal relationship recognition under federal law to opposite-sex couples should also be available to same-sex couples. This includes civil marriage.
Such a change in the law would not oblige any religious institution to solemnise marriages between same-sex partners. As is the case now, a religious institution would be authorised, but not required, to solemnise a marriage between two eligible people.
Dr Helen Szoke, commissioner, Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Melbourne
