Former Aussie Prime Minister - says NO to Homosexual Marriage
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| John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 1996–2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Former Prime Minister John Howard
says he prefers a free parliamentary vote on gay marriage to a plebiscite.
Mr Howard's
government introduced into law the definition of marriage as being
between a man and a woman in 2004. He said on Sunday that he "would
have preferred" the government to allow its members to vote according to
their conscience on whether same-sex marriage should be legal because
"I believe in representative democracy."
"I would've preferred
it being dealt with in the Parliament…on a completely non-partisan basis, I
think those issues are always better dealt with in a free vote," he said.
He told Sky News that the government
should, however, honour its promise to hold a plebiscite on the issue after the
election to avoid voters feeling let down.
Mr Howard noted that in 2004, Labor
had supported the current definition of marriage and rejected any
branding of those who continued to do so as far right-wing extremists.
In a wide-ranging interview ahead of
the 20th anniversary of his 1996 election victory on Wednesday, Mr Howard
said that branding people who opposed gay marriage as bigots or homophobic was
becoming too common
People were "entitled to be concerned" about possible
changes to the legal definition of marriage, just "as they are entitled to
be concerned of the anti-religious streak creeping into some parts of the
country", he said.
Mr Howard
cited Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews' decision to scrap scripture
from the public school curriculum and to ban hymns, while allowing Christmas
carols to be sung at schools."It's worse than absurd, I think it's
pernicious," Mr Howard said.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this week ordered a
review into the Safe Schools teaching manual, which is aimed at promoting
acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBTI) students.
Mr Howard was "glad" the review was going ahead
and "puzzled" over how the $8 million program
was launched by the Coalition in 2014. He said that he was concerned
about the program "like most middle Australians", given that
"fundamentally, according to our culture those sort of matters should be
discussed by parents with children".
While he supported resources that tackled bullying, he said
that they "don't need to pursue such a social agenda as this document is
clearly pursuing".
Opposition
leader Bill Shorten has supported the program and hit out at the review as a
"ridiculous, absurd obsession" of the Liberal party's right wing.
During a heated exchange at a press conference on the review, Liberal
senator Corey Bernardi, who had pushed for the program to be scrapped, called
Mr Shorten "a fraud", and Mr Shorten shot back: "At least I'm not a
homophobe either, mate".
Mr Howard said: "I have a traditional view on marriage
but I respect the other point of view. Let's have a sensible debate on
it. But to say anyone (opposing the program)…is a homophobe, really Mr
Shorten you are out of touch."
