ABC TV’s Q&A program on Monday night (5/3/12) raised the issue of marriage equality. Read full transcript of the discussion below.
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TONY JONES: OK, let’s move on again. You’re watching Q&A. It’s live from the Adelaide Festival. If you would like to continue the discussion, check out the Q&A Facebook page. We have a video question directed to Mark Steyn from Jordan Grantham in Parramatta NSW.
JORDAN GRANTHAM: Two of the most media-active members of the IPA, which sponsor his visit to Australia are noticeably pro gay marriage. My question is ‘Can true conservatives be pro gay marriage or is this another sign of a world turned upside down?’
TONY JONES: Mark Steyn?
MARK STEYN: There are actually a lot of… not a lot, but a significant number of conservatives who are pro gay marriage, particularly on the more libertarian side. There are people who think the States should have no determination on that.
TONY JONES: Where do you stand?
MARK STEYN: I am not in favour of gay marriage. I say that because I think an essence of the conservative temperament is a certain kind of prudence toward too much change. Marriage is an institution that predates almost any society, functioning jurisdiction on earth, and I think it is something you monkey with at your peril. For example, I think one thing it will almost certainly lead to, and there have already been cases working their way through courts in Canada which does have gay marriage, are applications from various polygamist communities. There’s far more takers for polygamy than there are for gay marriage. Polygamy is de facto recognised by, for example, the UK pensions department, the government of Ontario welfare department, various portions of the French government.
TONY JONES: Are you suggesting gay marriage registration will open up the doors to polygamy?
MARK STEYN: Yeah, I’m basically saying that if the sex of the particular partner doesn’t matter, I think it’s hard to make the case the number doesn’t matter. My point is there are far more societies on earth in which polygamy is legalised than gay marriage. You fellows laugh at that! But in fact, if you go to large parts of the world, particularly the Muslim world, it is entirely normal for guys to have four wives. They think that’s normal and for two guys to be married is abnormal. So let’s all celebrate diversity and be multicultural here and try and look at it from the other fellow’s point of view.
TONY JONES: It just may be that some people think we are talking about two separate issues. Natasha?
MARK STEYN: No, I don’t think so. We’re talking about redefining an institution.
NATASHA STOTT DESPOJA: Well, I was going to argue that, yeah, two separate issues as opposed to that it’s necessarily logically consistent. I get annoyed by that argument, because people say there’s animals and there’s more people, there is this and that. It’s just because, for conservatives, it’s a wonderfully convenient excuse to oppose same sex unions or gay marriage. Now obviously I would say that, wouldn’t I, because with my former Senator Andrew Bartlett wrote the legislation about to be debated in the Parliament in 2006 and I have been waiting for it to be debated. I respect other people’s conservative or religious or other opinions but surely we are beyond this debate. Surely as individualists… It is time. It is absolutely time.
TONY JONES: I would like to bring Jianying Zha into this debate. I’m very interested in what the situation is in China. Same-sex marriage or indeed homosexuality, how is it regarded there?
JIANYING ZHA: I like to label myself as a conservative liberal, whatever that means, but on this issue, I totally agree with Natasha, actually. Just to state the situation in China as recent as maybe 20 or 25 years ago, homosexuality was viewed as criminal. So there were attempts by State-run clinics to treat them, give them medical treatment by making them watch videos of homosexual acts repeatedly so they would find it disgusting. This would help them to change their interest.
AMANDA VANSTONE: It might confirm it.
JIANYING ZHA: Maybe to watch heterosexual. The point is to watch a sexual act to make them throw up so they would actually find gay act appalling.
TONY JONES: It sounds like a secret Clockwork Orange.
JIANYING ZHA: Exactly. Something like that. Or using electric shock when they have an erection.
MARK STEYN: The Dutch government shows a video of men kissing to potential immigrants from the Muslim world to show ‘This is what it means to be a Dutch citizen in the modern world.’ They show topless women as well and they show men kissing and say ‘If you are not comfortable with men kissing, you should think twice about immigrating to the Netherlands’. So they obviously think it would have the opposite view to the Chinese Politburo.
JIANYING ZHA: Whatever it is, it is perverse logic behind it. That’s alright. But happily, that’s no longer the situation. The Chinese society in general have grown much more tolerant and accepting about gay culture. There are actually, you know, gay districts and night life and clubs. People especially in urban areas, cities in China, they are actually quite open, especially in the arts and Universities. People don’t feel that paranoid about being gay. The trend is definitely towards accepting people’s individual sexual orientation so I don’t see why, what’s the difference, what’s the big deal of accepting that’s the way they are towards a natural desire they wanted to be socially, publicly, equally accepted with the ceremony to be together.
TONY JONES: I would like to hear Amanda Vanstone on this. Can I just put to you a specific question? Do you think your Coalition colleagues should have a conscience vote on this issue when it comes to the Parliament?
AMANDA VANSTONE: Well, yes, I do. I write a piece for the Fairfax papers saying that I think they should. I think it was a mistake to give that away, as I understand it, by leadership fear, but anyway that’s the leader’s decision and he can answer to that to people who disagree. I personally think conservatives can learn a bit from liberals here and the liberals within the Liberal Party would say to conservatives, I hope, ‘Look, why do you keep saying marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of others for life?’ ‘Cause the last two went years ago. This is the only one you are clinging on to. Give it away. Your three tenets don’t stand, two of them have already gone. That’s the first point. The next point I would make to conservatives – if you believe as I do you should try and look after yourself, be independent and be an individual, then you are going to have to do that with others. You’re going to have to have relationships and admit dependence on other people. That’s what people do when they get married. They say ‘We are going to be dependent on each other’. I think conservatives should welcome more people openly saying ‘I’m going to have a life relationship with this person, we will be dependent on each other, we are going to ask things of each other instead of asking from the State’. I think conservatives should welcome more recognition of interdependence. That’s what society is, otherwise it’s just individuals. I believe in individualism but society has to be more than a bunch of separate individuals and we need to encourage people to build these interdependences and recognise them. Having said that, I do have a problem, I just worry about the kids… this is in heterosexual marriages as well… that wake up one day and say ‘Who is my father? I want to know where the genetic material from my father came from and who is my mother’. You can end up with a situation where a kid just doesn’t know who the hell they are. I do worry about that. But that’s an issue unrelated potentially to the gay marriage issue.
TONY JONES: I’m going to move on to another question from Carol Fines.