The Australian Government has announced that it would hold a postal plebiscite (ostensibly an expensive nationwide non-legally binding survey on same-sex marriage) with respect to making same sex marriage legal. However, same-sex organizations have said they will block this. Other developed nations may be surprised to hear that in 2017 we are still politicking about people’s human right to marry in Australia.
As many of my followers already know, I am an adoptee activist and commentator and I write from this perspective. I felt compelled to write this piece and take a stand. In that spirit, and not that it is anyone’s business, for the sake of this post I am qualifying that I do not identify as LGBTQI, but I am an ally and proudly so. My brother is gay (and in a loving, same-sex relationship) and I have many family members and friends who identify as LGBTQI ― I stand with them! It is from this perspective and as an adoptee from the forced adoption/baby scoop era, that I am writing to confront those that conflate/associate same-sex marriage with forced adoption and the stolen generation.
I have seen alarming articles and debates online arguing that marriage equality is going to cause all manner of atrocities for children. For example, the Australian Marriage Forum, controversially said that this would create a “motherless generation” and in spruiking this they showed a snippet from the former Prime Minister (Julia Gillard) national apology to survivors/victims of forced adoption. Let me be clear, this conflation is offensive to me! As an adoptee, I attended the national apology for forced adoptions, using us as a weapon against marriage equality is facile and diminishes the horrendous/horrific and illegal acts that our mothers (and we adopted people) were subjected to during this era.
In addition, I have seen the debate that same-sex marriage is creating infertile partnerships. As the Australian Marriage Equality organization states
The law does not say married opposite-sex couples must have children. This is why we allow infertile couples to marry. Using the infertility argument against same-sex couples is a double-standard.
Damn right, case in point, my husband and I do not have children!
Furthermore, rainbow families already exist! Laws to allow same sex-couples to adopt have been changed across most states and territories in Australia. I wrote about this in 2016 in my capacity as an adoptee whereby I participated in the review of the operation of the Adoption Act 2009. In this article, I stated why I supported the removal of discrimination with respect to adoption but I established why I felt conflicted. The point I am making is that the provision of equality under the law for same-sex couples to marry has nothing to do with forced adoption or stolen generation. So please stop saying it is!
I am happy to have a separate debate about the issues in adoption and as a country we need to discuss the raft of issues that adoptees face nationally and internationally (marginalization and other inequalities) but that is a different issue and it spans all aspiring families who wish to adopt (irrespective of their sexual preference)! But that debate is for another time.
Finally, I look forward to the day when my brother, and other friends and family members, can have their committed and loving relationships recognized in law! Plus, I may get to walk my brother down the aisle one day – now that would be something to celebrate. So, for goodness sake, let’s stop the debate, let’s stop wasting tax payers’ money and get on with it – marriage equality! NOW!