The same-sex marriage post that Facebook deleted
When I
argued that the language used by same-sex marriage advocates risked doing the
real harm to LGBTI youths, Facebook removed my post. It took the intervention
of former Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson to get it restored, writes John
Dickson.
Perhaps
the most powerful argument for same-sex marriage and against holding a plebiscite on the issue is
the potential harm that is being done to vulnerable LGBTI youth. But the
argument itself is far from self-evident, and there are reasons to suspect that
both sides of the debate share equal responsibility for protecting gay and
lesbian youth from feeling they are a despised minority.
The
statistics are solid and alarming. A systematic review of
research in the scientific journal BMC Psychiatry found that lesbian, gay and bisexual people
"are at higher risk of mental disorder, suicidal ideation, substance
misuse, and deliberate self harm than heterosexual people."
Suicide attempts are 2.47 times higher among lesbian, gay and
bisexual people than among heterosexuals. Depression and anxiety rates are 1.5
times higher. Alcohol and substance abuse are 1.5 times higher. And, most
alarming, suicide rates among gay and bisexual men are 4.28 times higher than
average.
The pastoral issues are huge, and must be a priority. As I
recently told my own congregation in a series of talks on sex and relationships,
I would rather be misunderstood as fully supporting same-sex relationships than
misunderstood as suggesting that LGBTI Australians are second-class citizens.
Any discussion of the classical, or even biblical, understanding of sex must be
subordinate to the long-held Western conviction - also from the Bible - that
every human being is made in God's image and is inestimably precious.
Christians do bear a special responsibility in Western history.
While Greeks and Romans were also against same-sex marriage as an institution,
they famously accepted all manner of informal loving same-sex relationships.
It was the ascendency of Christianity in the West by the sixth
century that brought all same-sex relationships, not just same-sex marriage,
under a cloud of judgment. The argument was a simple extension of the
classical, or Greek and Roman, argument: "Nature" (Christians said
"God") had endowed just one human bond with the miraculous power to
create and nurture their own offspring for the good of society. This unique
bond deserved its own name: "Marriage."
It cannot really be doubted that this classical argument in
favour of heterosexual monogamy as a strict norm led to all manner of
despicable language and actions against those who didn't "fit".
Thousands of lives through history must have existed in fearful turmoil at the
prospect of being exposed as a "pervert". The ire of the
Christian-influenced world, and especially of Mother Church, would have been
terrifying. Better to suppress one's inner longings, or hide in the shadows of
shame. We now have the awful statistics to confirm such historical musings.
Against this background, it may seem utterly implausible and
misguided to suggest that anyone but the church bears any responsibility for
ensuring the LGBTI community, especially young people, are not harmed in the
current debate. But I ask readers to hear me out.
I think I detect a pattern of argumentation over same-sex
marriage today that could be harming gay and lesbian youth but which is partly
the fault of those advocating for same-sex marriage in the public media.
It is true that demeaning insults were once part of the stock
language against the entire LGBTI community in the public square. I can only
imagine the damage that did to young (and old) people wrestling with their
sexuality. It is a terrible part of our recent Australian history. God, forgive
us!
But we don't see many demeaning insults directed at the LGBTI
community in the public square nowadays. I am not talking about in the
schoolyard or at the pub, where I am sure deep problems of language and
behaviour persist. I am talking about the public square - in newspapers, on TV,
and on the radio.
Whether on The Project or Q&A, most of the anger,
intemperate language, and open spite comes from advocates of same-sex marriage
against traditionalists. Defenders of classical marriage - even if they are
wrong and loopy - on the whole seem to have learned to engage in the contest of
ideas with respect and civility. This is the one upside of having made so many
mistakes in the past: we can see the harm we've done and try do something about
it.
There is an intriguing pattern in public debates about gay
marriage. At the climax of many of these discussions, as advocates of same-sex
marriage raise their voices and deliver their insults, they frequently declare
with unnoticed irony something like, "And this is precisely why we
shouldn't have a plebiscite on gay marriage. Look how negative and hate-filled
the discussion becomes. This can only reinforce feelings of rejection among
LGBTI youth." Apparently, there has been a recent surge in calls to LGBTI
helplines. Something terrible does indeed seem to be happening.
Following
Telstra's recent statement that it would no longer publicly advocate for
same-sex marriage (before reversing the decision), the president of Melbourne's
Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Business and Enterprise (GLOBE), David Micallef,
released a statement slamming the telco for bowing to perceived pressure from the
Roman Catholic Church.
GLOBE pledged to cancel its Telstra phone services and no longer
accept financial support from the company. Micallef added:
I have been concerned by the hate-filled discussion that this
news from Telstra has generated and the negative impact it has already had on
LGBTI people in the community.
I read, watched, and listened to as much of the media discussion
that week as I could, and I detected no hate-filled speech at all from
defenders of classical marriage, though there was a lot of open spite from the
critics of Telstra.
I am
left fearing that what Micallef really means is that disagreeing with gay
marriage is itself hate speech. We have come to the point
in the discussion where you can be described as bigoted, hateful, and demeaning
toward others simply for articulating the view that "marriage" is a
unique word to describe the unique bond between a man and a woman in hope of
creating and nurturing their own offspring. There is a large intellectual blind
spot here, that probably deserves its own analysis. But my fear is more
practical.
By heightening the spiteful tone of the debate and constantly
emphasising the bigotry traditional marriage advocates allegedly hold toward
the LGBTI community, public advocates of same-sex marriage may be unwittingly
entrenching in young gay and lesbian people the feeling that there is something
wrong with them. After all, they are being encouraged to believe that a whole
segment of Australian society despises them and regards them as second-class
citizens.
Older LGBTI warriors no doubt have good reason for feeling
spiteful, and their sense of being scorned is historically and personally
grounded. I am really talking about contemporary media advocates of same-sex
marriage - frequently seen on Q&A or The Project, or preaching their
message on Twitter - who equate opposition to same-sex marriage with hatred,
pure and simple.
It is their message I fear has the potential to
harm not just healthy debate but human beings. By insisting that traditional
marriage advocates hate gays and lesbians, these well-intentioned same-sex
marriage advocates may be exacerbating the feelings of LGBTI youth that they
are indeed hated.
But imagine an alternative. If same-sex marriage advocates chose
tomorrow to emphasise in public debate that, whatever the faults of history, it
is entirely possible in the present to disagree with same-sex marriage and
genuinely care for LGBTI people, isn't it possible that young gay and lesbian
listeners would be spared some of the harm any debate would cause? If calm and
respectful discussion was the order of the day, instead of tribalism and slurs,
from whichever side, wouldn't LGBTI youth feel better about who they are and
less "under attack" from other segments of society?
I realise I see all this through the lenses of classical
Christian convictions and centuries of social power. I have tried to assess my
motives and look at this from the perspective of others. And still I am left
wondering if same-sex marriage advocates bear as much responsibility as
traditional marriage advocates for ensuring that LGBTI youth are not harmed in
the lead up to any plebiscite.
The
substance of this article first appeared as a Facebook post which was deleted
by Facebook and subsequently restored, following the intervention of former
Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson.
Dr John Dickson is an author and historian and
the Founding Director of the Centre for Public Christianity.
