I’m always on the lookout for an actual argument against marriage equality – it would make me feel better about the fact that, despite no-one apparently being able to offer one, it hasn’t simply happened here yet.
So it was in that spirit that I started reading Brendan O’Neill’s effort in this morning’s Australian. Can Brendan give us an actual logical reason for the Marriage Act to continue discriminating against people on the grounds of gender?
Sadly, no. Not today.
O’Neill actually argues that – get this – the government stopping trying to encourage gay people to marry straight people (which seems cruel to the straight people who marry them, to be honest) is “an invitation to yet more state interference” in our lives.
Yes, there’s less state control of our lives when the government arbitrarily tells us whether we can marry that man or that woman, purely on the grounds of our gender.
It’s the most bizarre black-is-white up-is-down argument I can remember ever seeing.