GAY TRUTH

An academic colleague suggested the other day that it would be good to post some recommendations for academic commentary on the same-sex marriage issues, for those who are interested in reading that goes a bit more in-depth than a standard blog post or opinion piece. I thought this was a great idea. I have compiled the following list of reading from recommendations of legal colleagues who, like me, have serious concerns about the proposal to introduce same-sex marriage. In that sense it is not a 'balanced' list. Those who want to find enthusiastic academic support for introducing the reform will not find it hard to do so elsewhere. But some of these pieces may not be so widely read, and deserve to be better known. Some are quite recent. Of course (pardon me for saying so) you will find other material on some of these issues here on this blog, and elsewhere. But these pieces are worth the extra time it will take to read them. (Unfortunately some are not freely availab...

Australia: Prime Minister Turnbull. The same-sex marriage debate turned nasty a long time ago by Karen Brooks This article is written by an academic K. Brroks who says:  "Reacting to Labor ’s reasons for blocking the plebiscite, primarily that it would fuel toxic debates potentially damaging the mental health of young people coming to terms with their sexuality, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull maintained that only a small minority would be “intemperate” and “cruel” about same-sex marriage. Turnbull’s wilfully ignorant insistence that the debate wasn’t going to become nasty would be offensive if he wasn’t right. It passed that milestone long ago." Karen Brooks then states the following; "The level of malice aimed at the LGBTQI community and the manner of crimes and social engineering of which they and their advocates are being accused, that’s what. It’s malevolent, misleading, and designed to cause maximum personal and cultural damage, often by representi...

A leading family law and child-protection expert has criticised the teaching of radical gender theory in classrooms across the country, likening the “odd and unscientific” beliefs promoted by groups such as the Safe Schools Coalition to those espoused by Scientology . Sydney University law profes­sor Patrick Parkinson has called for an extensive overhaul of the Safe Schools program, having taken issue with its ­promotion of “exaggerated statistics” on the prevalence of transgender and intersex conditions in the community to support its creators’ “belief that gender is fluid and can even be chosen”. In a research paper to be published today, Professor Parkinson notes that gender ideology, which lies at the heart of Safe Schools, has become a widespread belief system, particularly in Western countries . With its origins in university philosophy departments rather than science, it has no place in the primary or secondary school curriculum, which is required to be evidence-based,...

The national newspapers reporting of the freedom-sapping effects of same-sex marriage legislation is a potential game-changer in the long-running debate. After years of the gay lobby saying there were no consequences to changing the definition of marriage , suddenly mainstream media is waking up to the fact that this is not true. Concerns that ACL and others have raised for years about the impacts on freedom of speech and religion are now being taken seriously by serious journalists. The action against Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous and the entire Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference in the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission has woken journalists at News Corp with a jolt. The action is by Greens political candidate and transgender activist, Martine Delaney, who has claimed offence under the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act over a Catholic booklet entitled “Don’t Mess with Marriage”. The booklet contains all of the key arguments our side of the debate wou...

"We know the statistics - that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioural problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.'' - President Barack Obama , Father's Day speech, 2008. Yes, we do know the statistics. But that hasn't stopped an avalanche of hate - and I use the word advisedly - being unleashed against Cory Bernardi for quoting and echoing the sentiments of Obama in his book  The Conservative Revolution  (Connor Court 2013). The big whisper going around now about Bernardi is that he is gay. The preposterous logic goes like this: Bernardi hates gays, he is obsessed by the subject, which means he is probably a repressed, self-loathing homosexual. Under fire: Cory Bernardi. ...

English: Sarah Hanson-Young, Senator for South Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) ''It's an important step towards marriage equality,'' Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young , who put forward the bill. ''We have couples now living in Australia who've gone overseas and gotten married . . . and they arrive back home at Sydney International Airport and all of a sudden they have to check their marriage at the customs gate.'' Thursday's bill would have changed a section of the Marriage Act that states that ''certain unions are not marriages''. The Act says that foreign weddings between ''a man and another man'' and ''a woman and another woman . . . must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia''. But Liberal senator George Brandis responded by saying there was something ''chillingly unpleasant about hearing [Greens] Senator Hanson-Young giving one of her emotional speec...

WHEN they first moved in together, Mike* and his partner, who were both Catholic school teachers in Sydney , took some unusual steps to conceal their sexuality.  ''We set up our house with two bedrooms so if any colleagues came over we could pretend we were just flatmates,'' he said. Mike now works in an independent school, where he is open with staff, though not students, about his sexuality. His partner, who still works in the Catholic system, is more guarded. ''He's not able to take a day off work if I am sick. He has to be very guarded as to who he reveals his lifestyle to.'' Fairfax Media spoke to several gay Catholic school teachers in NSW and Victoria about the effect of exemptions for religious organisations from anti-discrimination laws. All said they hid their sexuality to varying degrees for fear of how it would affect their careers. Another teacher, Rob*, described the situation as a ''don't ask, don't tell kind of...