With the Senate due to debate David Leyonhjelm's Freedom To Marry Bill on Thursday, and the second anniversary of the National Apology for Forced Adoption only four days ago, the AMF President joins the dots in this article at Online Opinion. Thanks to the magnificent response of AMF supporters, combining our numbers with other family groups and ACL (over two million emails sent to MPs this week), the Senate has learned that we are still there, and we still care greatly about this - and they will have to think long and hard before inflicting another unjust law on future children.
Saying sorry means not doing it again
The second anniversary of the National Apology for Forced Adoptions, March 21st, should not have gone unnoticed. It was a noble moment in 2013 when our then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, spoke movingly about "the most primal and sacred bond there is: the bond between a mother and her baby". Our then Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, affirmed "there is no stronger bond than that between mother and child".
Our leaders apologised for a policy that had broken that primal bond and caused ongoing grief to mothers and children.
This week, our leaders are being asked to contemplate a new policy that would, once again, break "the primal and sacred bond between a mother and her baby". Will we never learn?
If our Senate votes on Thursday to institute 'marriage' without a woman, they are voting to institute families without a mother. By a coldly calculated decision of government, a mother’s presence will be abolished from the lives of any future children created with the institution of two-man ‘marriage’.
As lawmakers, they know that marriage is a compound right encompassing the dual "right to marry and to found a family" (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16). Therefore any law allowing two men to marry is a law guaranteeing adoption and surrogacy by two men – which certain states in Australia do not allow. Such a law would be state-sanctioned violation of "the most primal and sacred bond there is: the bond between a mother and her baby".
Of course, some children already miss out on a mother through death or separation, and single parents often do a great job - but that is a loss nobody would wish on a child. No government should ever impose that loss on a child - and yet Senator David Leyonhjelm’s Freedom to Marry Bill 2014 asks our political leaders to do just that.
Just as our leaders stopped to listen to the parents and children who experienced forced adoption, so they must stop and listen to parents and children who experienced gay ‘parenting’. Their voices have been loud in recent days.
Gay man Doug Mainwaring wrote last week that redefining marriage “might once again invite epic disaster for children, whose stories will emerge only as they become adults.”
Those adult stories are now emerging.
Heather Barwick, raised in a same-sex household, made international headlines when she wrote last week, “Same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn’t matter. That it’s all the same. But it’s not. A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting.”
Greater international headlines were made when gay fashion icons Dolce and Gabbana said, "We oppose gay adoptions. The only family is the traditional one.” Dolce added that "You are born to a mother and a father – or at least that’s how it should be.”
In support of their comments, six adult offspring of gay households, including Barwick, wrote in an open letter last week “Every human being has a mother and a father, and to cut either from a child’s life is to rob the child of dignity, humanity, and equality,” the letter reads.
Given these statements by gay men and children of gay households, would somebody please tell me how their words differ from these words of the Australian Marriage Forum’s recent television ad, considered so outrageous by SBS that they broke their contract to broadcast it during the Mardi Gras parade telecast:
“We hear a lot about marriage equality, but what about equality for kids? Children have an equal right, wherever possible, to both a mum and a dad. 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. Give every child their chance of a mum and a dad.”
Such words would once have been considered a motherhood statement. Now they are a thought crime. Say such a thing and you will be censored by the taxpayer-funded broadcaster, removed from Facebook with no explanation, and defamed by a columnist in your state’s largest newspaper. But it remains the fact that same-sex marriage makes it impossible for a child to have both a mother and a father, and that is an injustice against the child. That is why I object.
This week, as our politicians are asked to redefine marriage and family, they might recall our shameful forced adoption policy and reflect that "saying sorry means not doing it again". They must not perpetrate another policy that once again breaks "the most primal and sacred bond there is: the bond between a mother and her baby".
Dr David van Gend is a GP and President of the Australian Marriage Forum
UPDATE Thursday 26 March: Senator pulls Bill - but is it the Pointless to Marry Bill?
Senator Leyonhjelm has pulled his Freedom to Marry Bill, saying it is "pointless" without the Coalition having a conscience vote. Elsewhere he has said it is also pointless for him and his de facto partner to have a "piece of paper" from the government about their relationship. Miranda Devine did not miss the irony of a Freedom to Marry Bill coming from a man who thinks it is Pointless to Marry...
Leyonhjelm says he is trying to “induce” the Coalition to have a conscience vote on his legislation, which he assumes would guarantee its passage. A conscience vote is just code for open season on those courageous MPs who choose to uphold traditional marriage. The full vicious armoury of the “marriage equality” lobby will be employed to smear and intimidate those who disagree, threaten pre-selections and shut down debate.
In any case, the party room did not even discuss a conscience vote yesterday, in this last parliamentary session before the Budget.
So a disappointed Leyonhjelm is considering deferring his bill for a “couple of months”.
But if he really wants to reflect community sentiment he should push for a referendum. Let the public resolve the issue once and for all.
Incidentally, the good Senator is not married but has been in a defacto relationship with a woman for 30 years.
“I don’t need a piece of paper from the government to tell me I’m married,” he says. Right.
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