Media Release
For release: June 23, 2011
The Australian Christian Lobby is concerned Western Australia’s Labor party plans to further undermine the Prime Minister’s election promise by supporting a motion for same-sex marriage at this weekend’s state conference.
“The Prime Minister promised days before the last election that the ‘Marriage Act would remain unchanged’ and we are concerned elements of the party seem unaware of this promise,” ACL’s Western Australia Director Michelle Pearse said today.
“We’re concerned that Labor is alienating the Christian constituency in pursuit of Greens’ social policy.
“ACL urges delegates to the Federal Conference in December not to break Australia’s bi-partisan support for marriage being between one man and one woman,” she said.
Ms Pearse said the changing of 84 laws in 2008 giving same-sex couples the same rights as de-facto heterosexual couples meant that issues of equality had been comprehensively dealt with under Australian Commonwealth law.
“This debate would be understandable if there were issues of substantial inequality but there are none,” she said.
“Proponents for same-sex marriage argue that the majority of Australians’ support it. But this is inaccurate; the latest poll done by Essential Media in March showed 49 per cent of people supported same-sex marriage, down from 53 per cent in November last year.”
In a video interview two weeks before the 2010 election with ACL’s Managing Director Jim Wallace, Ms Gillard said:
“The Marriage Act will stay unchanged, so marriage will be defined as it is in our current Marriage Act as between a man and a woman, and we have also said that the Labor Party policy is we do not want to see the development of ceremonies that mimic marriage ceremonies. And so that’s the party policy, and as Prime Minister, as the leader of the parliamentary Labor Party that’s obviously my policy, and that’s what you should expect to see from the Gillard Labor Government if we’re re-elected.”
Ms Pearse called on the Party to support the Prime Minister’s stance at the National Conference in December.
Copy of my letter to West Australian for your information following Brian Greig opinion in Wednesday 22nd paper.
Marriage is final hurdle writes Brian Greig (Opinion Wednesday) and asks why same sex couples cannot get a marriage licence.
Leaving aside any religious or moral arguments the reason should be obvious. For thousands of years the definition of marriage has been in our dictionaries, Bibles and marriage acts as a union between a man and a woman. The word marriage is not a generic term, it is specific and the people in a marriage are referred to as a husband and a wife. Men and women that elect not to get married but are living together are referred to as being partners or in a de facto relationship, Women who do not want to be addressed as Miss or Mrs have chosen Ms.
What Mr Greig is proposing is to change the meaning and understanding of the word marriage to include homosexual forms of pairing or partnerships. Homosexuals need to come up with their own wording for their commitment to one another but they cannot use the word marriage because that stands for something else. I want to know that when somebody tells me they are married I know what they mean.
I don’t sit in judgement on what LGBT people do just the fact that whatever they decide to call homosexual couples living together they may not call it a marriage, nor should they go through the same ceremony as a man and a woman who get married unless their intent is to mock the current understanding of marriage.
The homosexual lobby has already changed the meaning of the word gay to suit themselves so that people are now loath to use it in its original meaning.
They will not get the respect they seek whilst they continue to relentlessly attack the institution of marriage as a hurdle to be overcome in their quest for “Equal Rights” which they now say they have in every other area.
She also made a promised there wouldn’t be a carbon tax… is she has turned her back on 1 promise, the Christian community would be stupid to believe she won’t do the same to them.