Bigot Point:
"Same-sex marriage isn't natural marriage."
This was actually a new one for me. I had no idea what the term "natural marriage" meant, and at first assumed the bigots were just talking nonsense.
I am not a Catholic and am in no way an expert on Catholic law, i have gone to Catholic sources to try to understand this argument. Well it turns out "natural Marriage" is actually a thing, if your Catholic.
"Natural Marriage" in Catholic law is defined as an agreement. ;
"by which a man and a woman establish between themselves
a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature
to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of
offspring".
So firstly its a Catholic religious law, so due to our constitution it should not be used as the Australian legal definition of marriage. It is fine and good for Catholics to treat their own marriages this way, but those of other religions, or of no religion certainly shouldn't be forced to follow another religions doctrine.
The "man and woman" part is currently in line with Australian Marriage law as of 2004. Thus "natural Marriage" would breach our constitution as much as the existing definition does. But correcting the law to include same-sex couples would not effect this Catholic definition as Catholics could continue to discriminate.
The part about Natural Marriage being "for the whole of life" sounds very Catholic in that divorce is not an option under Catholic law. This is different to Australian law which does allow for divorce. One wonders how the bigots would want to enforce this if they had the chance. Would divorced couples suddenly find them selves married again? What if they had already remarried which marriage would be enforced. Obviously the Australian constitution should protect us from this kind of law.
Indeed with divorce not being a thing, you could never get remarried if the bigots have their way and enforce this religious law.
I had no idea what "ordered by its nature" means... Some sources seem to imply that it refers to the natural sex drive, so in this context same-sex couples are allowed as their sex drives and attractions are natural.
Other sources seem to imply it simply means that the marriage must be consummated, again that would include same-sex couples.
So these bigots want to make it law that the marriage must be consummated, which at first glance doesn't seem a problem, but what about those who have problems in that area?
As far as i am aware Australian marriage law doesn't have this vague wording and doesn't require the marriage be consummated, i have certainly never heard of police watching over a honeymooning couple to ensure the deed gets done...
The term "to the good of the spouses" seems highly subjective. I certainly hope such vague language wouldn't find its way into Australian law. Who would decide what is for the good of the spouses?
So part of "natural marriage" these bigots want to enforce is the ability and requirement to procreate. This would be worrying for older Australians, those who can not procreate for medical reasons and those who simply don't want to procreate.
Current marriage laws in Australia do not require procreation.
As to education of the offspring, well does that mean they would have to be home schooled? Is home schooling really an ideal education? Does this mean only qualified teachers can be married, or is it a carry over from older times when children were not necessarily educated. So those in a "natural marriage" should be fighting for sex education in schools, fighting for their schools to adopt anti-bulling programs such as Safe Schools, and ensuring there children know that being LGBT is a natural part of human existence, right?
There are also conditions that Catholic "natural marriage" must be between only two people, that the male must be at least 16 and the female at least 14 years of age and, sorry Cory but both participants must be human.
So we have established that the Catholic "natural marriage" is not currently the same as Australian Marriage law.
We know that the current laws are discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Changing the Australian law to match the Catholic "natural marriage" definition would also be unconstitutional and discriminatory.
Changing the Australian marriage laws to make them constitutional and non-discriminatory will not effect the Catholics definition of "natural marriage" in any way, they are two separate things.
This argument is entirely disingenuous, as it implies that Australian Marriage law is currently the same as Catholic law and that marriage equality would somehow change Catholic dogma, and this is simply not the case.
Consider also the fact that not all Australians are Catholic and that the bigots want to impose specific Catholic laws on non-Catholics is very disturbing. Their argument is just as alarming as someone trying to bring about Sharia law (Islamic law) into Australia.
In my opinion Australia should remain a democracy, not a theocracy like those who use these arguments desire.
