Letter to Senate Committee

 I sent the following letter today to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee:

Dear Secretary, 

I have always avoided bringing religion into the debate about Same-Sex Marriage, because I see gay marriage as a means of removing entrenched discrimination in government policy against gays, not as a religious issue. 

However, many religious folks are bringing their religion into it as an argument supporting their right to discriminate. They argue that "offending their religious beliefs" is a trump card for them to play. Maybe it was once.

The Roman Catholic hierachy is leading the opposition to gay marriage in Australia, despite most of its adherents supporting the concept. 

The Roman Catholic Church's opposition to same-sex civil marriage policy is bizarre because the Church simply does not recognise civil marriages at all - not even between a man and a woman!

The Church should have no interest in deciding who can and who can't obtain a civil marriage, because the only marriages which it will accept are the religious ceremonies which it has actually presided over. 

Yet the church organisation is determined to control not only its own marriages but Government civil marriages as well. How can anyone not sniff the acrid pong of hypocrisy in such a contradictory position?

MPs and Senators need to do their job. Amend the Marriage Act right now, instead of waiting for a plebiscite in the next Parliament to force them to do it. Get it done now and the issue will be gone.

Yours,