Statement from Australian Marriage Forum President

Three months ago, when this postal vote process was announced, our Media Release said no public vote, no Parliament, no court had the authority to repeal nature and change the meaning of marriage. We said that marriage is based on an unchangeable truth: that only man and woman can create new life; only man and woman can give a child her mother and father, her biological identity and ancestry. No other relationship, however important, is Marriage.

But the unthinkable has happened with today's vote.

We accept that same-sex marriage will now become legal, but it will only be a legal fiction. It will forever remain untrue, unjust and unnecessary. Untrue to nature and timeless culture; unjust to those future children who will now be compelled, by an Act of Parliament, to miss out on their mother or father; unnecessary, since same-sex couples already have the same legal status and benefits as any other couple in Australian law.

A team of us flew down at 4am from Queensland to join the Coalition for Marriage in Sydney for today's announcement. We are dejected; we are ashamed at the triviality of our culture that puts the emotional demands of adults ahead of the more profound rights and needs of the child; we are apprehensive at the "Safe-Schools-on-Steroids" material that will now be forced on our kids and the intimidation that will be brought to bear on conscientious objectors.

But we all did our best, and the campaign moved over a million extra votes our way - from the baseline 28% support to 38%. And we will now start digging the next defensive trench to protect the rights of parents over the moral education of their children, and the rights of all of us to speak our mind and live according to what we believe to be true and right.

As I wrote in the Courier Mail article on the morning the result was announced.

"We have always said that same-sex couples are free to live as they choose and love whom they will. If the Yes vote prevails, LGBTI activists will have achieved the recognition of same-sex marriage, they will have gained official affirmation from society, and good luck to them - but they cannot have the minds of our children or the voices of our pastors. That line they cannot cross."

The Yes vote has prevailed. We press on, in defense of future children and present freedoms.

Regards,

David van Gend

 

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