GAY TRUTH

The question posed by the title of this post is simply this: is it a denial of a fundamental human right, for a legal system not to extend the category of marriage to include marriage between parties of the same sex? The question was posed in a stark way by recent reported comments of the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission , Prof Gillian Triggs . Prof Triggs, for whom I have great respect as a scholar and academic, was delivering the annual Sir Anthony Mason Lecture at Melbourne Law School on 4 August, 2016. She strongly criticised a lack of commitment to human rights in recent decisions of the High Court of Australia, and the Commonwealth Government. In a short paragraph near the end of her address , she also said the following: A recent example of the failure of Parliament to protect fundamental rights is the decision to hold a plebiscite on marriage equality. Why do we hold an expensive, potentially divisive compulsory but non–binding national vote on the right...

The question posed by the title of this post is simply this: is it a denial of a fundamental human right, for a legal system not to extend the category of marriage to include marriage between parties of the same sex? The question was posed in a stark way by recent reported comments of the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission , Prof Gillian Triggs . Prof Triggs, for whom I have great respect as a scholar and academic, was delivering the annual Sir Anthony Mason Lecture at Melbourne Law School on 4 August, 2016. She strongly criticised a lack of commitment to human rights in recent decisions of the High Court of Australia, and the Commonwealth Government. In a short paragraph near the end of  her address , she also said the following: A recent example of the failure of Parliament to protect fundamental rights is the decision to hold a plebiscite on marriage equality.  Why do we hold an expensive, potentially divisive compulsory but non–binding nationa...