Thursday 12 March, 2015
To Australian Christians concerned about marriage,
You might have heard about the first television ad in our marriage campaign, ‘Think of the Child’, which we broadcast in Sydney as the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade got underway.
The Mardi Gras Parade is a protest march, which had, as usual, a ‘Marriage Equality’ float. Our ad is a gentle but direct counter-protest, pointing out that ‘marriage equality’ for adults always means inequality for kids. Here is the ad in case you have not seen it:
So-called ‘marriage equality’ forces a child to miss out on a mother, or a father.
That’s not ‘equality’ for the kids who miss out.
That’s not marriage.
URL: http://youtu.be/s80wL5al5NA
Since last Saturday night the ad has been seen over half a million times on You Tube. In four days.
The ad has been the subject of widespread coverage in the mainstream media. For example, see HERE.
Trying to silence our voice
We have also been the object of attack and censorship, with the taxpayer-funded broadcaster SBS refusing at the last minute to play the ad, which had been booked and approved weeks earlier. As I see it, this is a case of censorship by a public broadcaster of even the mildest expression of ‘unacceptable opinion’ on same-sex marriage:
- SBS is a publicly funded broadcaster, paid for by people on both sides of the same-sex ‘marriage’ debate.
- SBS broadcast hours of the Mardi Gras protest rally, free of charge, with its ‘marriage equality’ float and other political themes.
- They refused to broadcast even one minute of a paid ad arguing the child-centred case against ‘marriage equality’.
Many people who do not agree with us on marriage being between man and woman do agree that this censorship by SBS was wrong. For example, see HERE.
There are other ways in which people are trying to silence our voice.
My personal Facebook page, full of family videos and memories, was taken down without explanation on Tuesday, after I posted our ad. There is a petition at change.org to have our ad removed from You Tube. So much for free speech and the right of all citizens to argue their case on matters of public importance!
Likewise, journalists have felt free to slander me and our organisation, to try and exclude us from the debate. That is not surprising, and will not discourage us, because what we are defending – the life between a mother, father and baby – is a ditch we will quite happily die in.
Responding to criticism
There has been some sincere criticism from single parents who think we are commenting on the job they are doing. Not at all. Clearly our ad says “the equal right, wherever possible, to both a mum and a dad”. We know it is not always possible for kids to have both a mum and a dad - maybe the parents separate or a parent might have died - and many single parents I know do a remarkable job. And even kids in a single-parent household do have a second parent out there somewhere. What we are objecting to is the idea of a government policy that deliberately creates an institution where it is impossible for a child to have both a mother and a father, right from the start – not through tragic loss but through creating a new motherless or fatherless institution. That’s what a law for same-sex marriage would do, because it carries the right to same-sex adoption and surrogacy.
We have also been told that two men are just as caring and competent as a man and a woman. Fair enough, but neither man can be a mother to a newborn baby. Just take nursing the baby at the breast as an example where men are certainly not qualified: this profound mammalian bond matters immensely to a baby’s emotional attachment and stability. Later in life, neither man can guide a growing girl to womanhood the way a mother can. A man is not a woman; we love our mothers in a different way to how we love our fathers, and both are uniquely important and irreplaceable to the child.
Another criticism has been that by opposing same-sex marriage we are causing offence and distress to young people who are being raised in same-sex households. Nobody wants to cause offense and distress, so we have to consider this, even though the number is tiny: only 1.2% of Australian adults identify as exclusively same-sex attracted, and only a third of those, or 0.4% of adults, live in a same-sex partnership. Even fewer of those couples have children in the household. But there are only two ways for people not to take offense at something they don’t like. One is for them to choose not to listen to the discussion. Another is for people on our side of the marriage debate to just stay silent and let the other side be the only voice. That cannot happen if there is to be any debate at all on this radical proposal to redefine the foundational institution of society.
Time to fight back
To demonstrate that the intimidation and censorship will not silence us, we plan to launch our second ad in the near future – provided we can get the funds.
Friends here in my home town of Toowoomba funded the first launch, because they wanted to say to this great political parade, with its “Marriage Equality” message, “Stop! Marriage is not just about you adults! Think of the child and their birth-right, wherever possible, to have both a mother and a father.”
Can we ask you please to help us. We need you to:
- SHARE the YouTube version of our TV ads far and wide, to prove they cannot silence the child-centred case against same-sex marriage.
- USE the ads and material in your church, youth groups, school classrooms and homes to help people young and old ‘think of the child’ in the context of marriage.
- SIGN UP to our email list so we can keep in touch with you and your church community.
- DONATE if you are able, to be part of this consciousness-shift in public thinking about marriage - knowing that we are all volunteers at AMF and not a dollar will be wasted.
- CONTACT YOUR MP and Senators in Federal Parliament, via our button on the website, asking them please to “keep marriage between man and woman, so that a child always has the chance of a mum and a dad”.
Also please watch and SHARE our ‘Think of the Child’ Campaign Promo, where I explain the motivation for our ads – and our hopes that it will be a resource for the Christian community:
URL: http://youtu.be/7tZzbfsTeYE
Think of the Child
Here goes! For too long the marriage debate has centred solely on the demands of adults, and it is time that the fundamental rights and needs of the child took centre stage.
Our campaign will address other grave consequences of normalising homosexual ‘marriage’ in law, such as the radicalising of sex-education and the crushing of conscientious and religious freedom with the Big Stick of anti-discrimination law.
We want these ads, and the associated resources at our website, to help clarify the heart of opposition to same-sex ‘marriage’ and help fortify the great middle-ground of the Australian public – especially the Australian churches - to reject such a radical and unjust proposal. In turn, our good people in Parliament will be encouraged by all of us to stand firm, saying:
"I agree that a child should have a mum and a dad, wherever possible. I know that isn't always possible, but we must not make laws that deliberately deprive future children of either a mother or a father… And that is what laws for 'gay marriage' will do."
Thank you for helping change hearts and minds, so that people will ‘Think of the Child’ when they think of marriage – and will reject bad laws that discriminate against the child.
Dr David van Gend
President, Australian Marriage Forum
contact@AustralianMarriage.org
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