The following piece was written by AME Campaign Director, Rodney Croome AM, and was first published on the ABC The Drum Unleashed.
***
If science discovered that gay marriage leads to earthquakes, as some fundamentalists have predicted, Australians would be much less likely to support it.
Fortunately, we know the causes of earthquakes and divine wrath over gay relationships isn’t one of them.
But this hasn’t stopped opponents of marriage equality from predicting that allowing same-sex marriages will have consequences just as dire: a lost generation of damaged children, a radical redefinition and weakening of marriage, the promotion of homosexuality in schools, a nation divided, a parliament distracted, a populace press-ganged, an end to free speech and religious freedom, and a loss of votes for either major party if they allow it.
The Ambrose Centre, an Australian church-based institute, has put these long-proclaimed fears to the people through a national survey and found the obvious; if these fears are in fact true, Australians are much less keen on marriage equality than they appear.
The problem is these predictions aren’t true. Take children, for example.
After analysing all the data, including large-scale longitudinal studies, both the American and Australian Psychological Associations agree that the children raised by same-sex couples are just as well adjusted (possibly better adjusted) than their peers.
The American Association has gone further, finding that if the children of same-sex couples experience any harm it is from the fact their parents can’t marry.
The same goes for predictions about marriage.
Studies in Europe and North America have found that allowing same-sex couples to marry strengthens the institution of marriage rather than redefining or weakening it.
In countries that have equality, overall marriage rates are up and divorces down. Younger straight couples feel marriage is more relevant and gay couples feel a stronger sense of commitment and responsibility.
As for freedom of religion, clearly the Ambrose Centre wasn’t paying attention a few days ago when Andrew Wilkie announced a motion that will make it crystal clear churches will not have to marry same-sex couples if they don’t want to.
But let’s be frank, the Ambrose Centre study isn’t really about society, it’s about politics.
The report has been released now to spook the upcoming ALP National Conference into not changing its party platform to support marriage equality.
But even here it’s prediction that voters will desert a pro-equality party don’t stack up against reality.
The Ambrose Centre cooks its results by deliberately excluding the large percentage of voters who have strong views on marriage equality, but do not consider the issue on its own to be a vote-changer. By doing so it concludes that supporting gay marriage would lose a political party more votes than not supporting the issue.
However, a recent Galaxy poll that included all voters regardless of how strongly they support or oppose marriage equality, found that there will be a 7.3 per cent swing to Labor if it supports this reform, made up mostly of people whose votes will go the Greens if Labor doesn’t act.
Reliable polls like this are why key Labor strategists – including Bruce Hawker from Hawker Britten – have said the Prime Minister has made a strategic blunder by opposing marriage equality.
Clearly, there’s not much in the Ambrose Centre findings which holds up to scrutiny.
But there are two things included in the report which are of some value.
First, the study found when asked a neutral question about marriage equality – one that doesn’t push-poll about the end of the world – a majority of Australians support the issue.
The Ambrose Centre found about 60 per cent of Australians believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, exactly the same figure found by other mainstream polling companies.
Second, the Ambrose Centre survey is effectively a blue-print of the campaign the religious right will run against marriage equality if and when the major parties move towards supporting the issue.
It is a laundry list of all the hot-button non-issues opponents of equality intend to scare the Australian public with through the kind of large-scale ad campaigns that have been rolled out in every country that has debated marriage equality.
Of course they’ll fail, just like they failed to stop every other step towards gay equality through the deployment of the same non-issues.
Nonetheless, the damage such a campaign will do, particularly to young and vulnerable gay and lesbian Australians, will be heartbreaking.
Hopefully, by seeing an advanced copy of the strategy to stop equality, the nation can prepare itself for all the little political earthquakes the religious right hopes to trigger, and instead conduct this debate in the mature and rational manner the issue demands.
Rodney Croome AM, is an honorary lecturer in sociology at the University of Tasmania.