Letters

Protecting marriage

Brian A. Coman

Contents - May 2012 - Buy a copy now Mexico: Benedict XVI's reflection on Our Lady of Guadalupe - Pope Benedict XVI Episcopacy: Brisbane's new Archbishop well-equipped for the challenges - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Obama imposes contraception document on UN - Babette Francis Benedict XVI builds on John Paul II's historic Cuba visit - Michael Gilchrist The culture wars: Archbishop Chaput's call to Christians - Ben Johnson Young adult ministry 2012: more reasons for hope - Br Barry Coldrey Religious Freedom: Catholics in Iraq: a struggle for survival - Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda The Church's dogma of transubstantiation - John Young UK Catholic schools under fire for 'homophobia' - Hilary White Letters: Obvious Link - C.V. Phillips Letters: Pro-life apathy - George Simpson Letters: Rights of children - Robert Bom Letters: Protecting marriage - Brian A. Coman Letters: Tradition - Peter Hill Letters: Year of Grace - Ken Bayliss Letters: Genuflection - John Frey Letters: Education costs - Arnold Jago Letters: Infanticide - Richard Congram Letters: Endorsement - Joy Mason Books: THE GIFT OF INFALLIBILITY, by Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: A COMPANION TO CATHOLIC EDUCATION, by Leonardo Franchi and Stephen McKinney (ed) - Angela Schumann (reviewer) Events: The Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite: Sacredness in Continuity Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: Nicene Creed's "consubstantial":What does this mean? - Bishop Arthur Serratelli

The Australian people have a perfect right, in fact a duty, to protect the institution of  marriage from those who seek to damage it in their own selfish interests.

Supporters of same sex "marriages" make lots of noise about gaining equal status in the eyes of the law but very little, if anything, about the detrimental impact such a move would have on marriage as we know it. The simple fact is that if you mix two things together both of them are changed not just one.

The impact upon traditional marriage would be disastrous. What, for example, would the  Commonwealth Marriage Act have to say to accommodate same sex couples? For various reasons it could not, I suggest, be couched in terms that would allow marriage celebrants and other authorities to rely simply upon the statement of an individual applicant as to his or her sexual preference as the sole determinant for eligibility under the Act.

For one thing such a course may well run up against some or other privacy provision. For another, Australians just do not like governments putting labels on them.

Inevitably, therefore, the door would have to be thrown open for anyone to "marry" anyone else to the ultimate detriment, even destruction, of traditional marriage as we know it.

What is more, the anti-discrimination arguments largely used to justify the damage are spurious at best if not patently false. The Commonwealth Marriage Act, for example, draws no distinction whatever between homosexuals and heterosexuals and thus could not possibly favour one or the other.

Even if the bow is stretched to the limit there is still no discrimination because a heterosexual is restricted by the Act in exactly the same way as a homosexual.

In confining itself to a union between a man and a woman the Marriage Act accords with  the natural order, is both legitimate and reasonable, and cannot, in my view, be regarded as in any way discriminatory against same sex unions. The two arrangements are simply different just as apples and oranges are different. The fruiterer does no wrong in treating one differently from the other.

So please let us have no more conjured up accusations of unfair discrimination. The  drawing of a distinction between the two life styles is quite unremarkable and sensible.

BRIAN A. COMAN
 Mordialloc, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 25 No 4 (May 2012), p. 15