Channel 7′s Sunrise show has joined with GetUp! and the magazine Marie Claire to promote same-sex marriage throughout this week, and particularly this Thursday June 7th with the ido.org.au campaign.
Newspapers are reporting on Thursday there’ll be outside broadcasts in Melbourne and Sydney to launch the push and how it intends to take the campaign to Canberra
The executive producer of Sunrise Michael Pell said that it was important that the show took a stand and it had the full support of presenters David Koch and Melissa Doyle.
The Herald Sun reports him saying “For a long time now they have both been behind the whole gay marriage issue. They understand everyone does not support it, but a show like Sunrise, we care. We are trying to make a difference, affect change rather than just comment on it. It’s not an issue about sexuality, it’s a human rights issue.”
That a TV current affairs show, let alone TV station, should take sides in such a highly contentious issue in the public square is disgraceful. What it says for the respect they have for alternative opinion, even our values, is extremely disappointing and we need to register our disappointment.
This comes at a strategic time in the debate, so please spend a minute to fill out the Sunrise comments section at this link to make your comment, but please do it now
You might:
- Ask them what you are supposed to think this action means for their respect and even tolerance of your views and values on an issue that goes to the very heart of family and the flourishing of children;
- Ask why Sunrise has decided it’s a ‘human rights issue’ when the Australian Government has removed discrimination in 84 laws in 2008 and when the European Court of Human Rights ruled in March that same-sex marriage is not a human right
- Register your disgust that the press, supposedly the neutral umpire and facilitator of public debate, should allow itself to be captured by the propaganda machine of the gay lobby; and
- If you’re so convicted, you might advise them that you do not propose to watch the show again.
Also, please consider sending an email to Sunrise’s partners sharing your concerns about the television show. They include Purina, The Coffee Club, Accor Hotels, Myer and Jetstar.
I have emailed Sunrise and all of it’s partners (except Accor Hotels as I couldn’t find an email form for them). This is what I sent to them:
I have recently heard that Sunrise and Channel 7 will be promoting and supporting same-sex marriage. I am sending this email to all of Sunrise’s partners to express my disappointment in this decision.
Firstly, The fact that a TV current affairs show, let alone TV station, should take sides in such a highly contentious issue in the public square is disgraceful. What it says for the respect they have for alternative opinion and values is extremely disappointing.
I can only assume that Sunrise and Channel 7 do not respect the opinion and values of those who support marriage as it stands, which even includes some who are homosexual – as some homosexuals are against same-sex marriage… and as a former member of the LGBTIQ community, I do not support same-sex marriage because I care for those who it affects.
Also, why has Sunrise decided it’s a ‘human rights issue’ when the Australian Government has removed discrimination in 84 laws in 2008 and when the European Court of Human Rights ruled in March that same-sex marriage is not a human right issue?
I believe it is unacceptable that the press, supposedly the neutral umpire and facilitator of public debate, should allow itself to be captured by the propaganda machine of the gay lobby; especially when considering only 4-10% of people actually identify as homosexual.
If this media campaign goes ahead, I will not be watching the Sunrise show again, and if the campaign continues further, I will not be watching any of the Channel 7 shows or shows on any of their networks. I will also choose to not request any future sponsorships or advertising from Channel 7 and I will be encouraging anyone I know to do the same.
I will also be sending this email to all of Sunrise’s partners, as well as withdrawing my business from it’s partners such as Purina, The Coffee Club, Accor Hotels, Myer and Jetstar. I will also encourage anyone I know to do the same.
I hope to see this issues rectified as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Deborah Marriott
Dear Sunrise Team,
Just wanted to let you know that I think your little equality stunt is a joke.
Where did you get the figures that the majority of Australian support same-sex marriage ? Considering that there were thousands of emails sent to parliament from people saying they DON’T want marriage to be redefined I’m interested to know where you get your facts from. Until there is a national referendum on this subject no one knows what most Australian really think.
Why are you pandering to 4% of the population, and why should we rewrite what marriage means to satisfy the whinging of that 4%? There is no discrimination here, the European Court of Human Rights has said this last March that marriage is NOT a human right. No one has the right to marry, a father and daughter cannot marry, a brother and sister cannot marry and they are the opposite sex.
Crying that this is a human right is rubbish, if your human rights are taken away you would be suffering, starving, homeless or tortured. And considering that most same sex attracted people are middle class, working folk who are we kidding when the human rights cry is heard. I bet people living in refugee camps in third world countries would laugh at such a claim.
Do you understand that if same sex marriage is made law children down to Kindergarten will be taught about it, this is what has happened in other places where same sex marriage has come into law. Parents have been refused notice of when such subjects are being taught and they are not allowed to opt their children out of these classes. If you want to talk about rights there are some to discuss, a parents right to teach their children what and when they feel the child is ready. And lets not forget a child’s right to have an innocent childhood not having to be taught from the age of 5 about adult topics way beyond their years. Or their right to have a parent of each gender, Melissa how would you have felt at 12 getting your first period and only having 2 men to talk to about it ? Yes I know all children don’t have both parents but let’s admit that it is the best situation for a child to have isn’t it. It’s been that way since the beginning of time so there must be some wisdom and truth behind it.
Not that I ever watch your show because I think it’s drivel but I will also no longer be watching Channel 7 anymore if this stunt goes ahead. And I will boycott your partners Purina, Accor Hotels, The Coffee Club, Myer and Jetstar.
Just another point of view for you to consider.
Julia Kendrick.
A majority of Australians support the right of gay men & women to marry their partners. No one is suggesting that this be anything other than a civil ceremony, as most straight marriages are now.
No one is suggesting that churches be forced to carry out gay marriage.
Dear peter, your facts are wrong, over 70% of australians disapprove of same sex marriage. less than 30% is NOT a majority. marriage is meant to keep a couple together for producing children. same sex marriages do not produce children, its biologically impossible. the recent court ruling that allows both fathers names to be on a birth certificate and not the biological mothers name is a joke. birth certs are so we know who the father and mother are so that biological brothers and sisters don’t end up in incest by marriage.
this same sex marriage issue is just wrong, why are we letting a minority rule. because it sounds nice! same sex couples have all the legal status they need. marriage is between one man and one woman, thats it.
your reasoning leads to people marrying their fridges or dog, don’t laugh these are requests in holland due to their lax marriage laws so the same sex couple can be wed.
peter read the bible, the very word of GOD, the unchanging word of GOD. what does it say?
I work for Accor, and will be resigning my post in the morning in protest over this.
I hope all true Christians who oppose the abomination of gay ‘marriage’, and who work for any of the organisations who have been seduced by Satan, will be given the necessary courage by The Lord and do the same.
Let us show them that we are willing to stand by our beliefs.
Once again opponents remove any reference to the human side of the argument. LGBTIQ people want to be treated equally because it is painful not to be. A heterosexual 16 year old can choose to marry yet Michael Kirby cannot. Not having equality diminishes people as worthy human beings in the community.
People I love so dearly have told me they’ve considered suicide in light these negative social attitudes towards them as a fellow human. It breaks my heart because it’s their god given diversity that should be celebrated not a reason for self elimination. Like it or not much of the behaviour and attitudes expressed above manifestly project a hatred towards people like myself, an educated, contributing young man. The result of the arguments above have a material negative impact on our fellow human beings.
Religious faith to me is about humility and being humble in awe of god. Not man dishing out rules to gods creatures as if one were god. If it were me I would advocate removal of ‘marriage’ from the all law and recognise unions only. That would leave it to respective believers to name their union whatever they like.
PS I would never get ‘married’, but it is very nasty to say I cannot while some of my peers can.
I also sent a letter to Sunrise expressing my deepest feelings for the ACL and the work they do. I hope you support me in the sentiments of my letter as I am not sure how it will work initially:
Dear Sunrise and co,
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I find it completely absurd you would even consider supporting same sex marriage as I am a Christian and I believe my rights to be comfortable and unthreatened by the rampant acts of homosexuality being shoved in our faces by such blatant promotion are much more important than this ludicrous campaigning for so called “equal rights”.
Almost every time I see approval of same sex marriage flouted in my face, I shudder to think what sort of environment my two children (William, 3 and Grace, 4) will grow up in. My children should not be asking me why two men are doing holding hands in the street like mummy and daddy.
This is completely abhorrent. Really, can we stand for this? Obviously we need you to put your foot down and stop this obstreperous advocacy. Look at what is happening to our children! Let us not resign to the powers of the homosexual lobby! Instead of pandering to the possibly greater than a million Australians and their families who would benefit from having the choice to marry the person they love, allow us to remain stagnated in our laws. Nothing is to be gained on part of young gay children being able to be seen validation in the law and society in this sacred institution. Gays are able to be cured, we must ignore the recent news debunking homosexual reparative theory.
Fountains of Christian fundamentalists can support me in saying that the gay disease is curable. Upon deciding to enter the homosexual lifestyle, they chose to disregard the norms of society and they must accept that the only way to be loved by God is to return back to the path of heterosexuality. Can we not agree that us Christians who have been following the word of God for over two thousand years, know what is best? Keep on promoting the homosexual lifestyle and you will lose our loving and not at all fickle viewership.
Your support of the homosexual lobby is deeply disappointing. Our society can not handle the change of homosexuals marrying. Under any new laws condoning same sex marriage, we will have our rights of spiritual comfort taken away.
All I can say is that we must stand for what we believe in. Christians are concerned with upholding moral values. Love is the very foundation of marriage and we must support this in family.
–
Yours sincerely,
R. A. B.
Thanks – I used your links to tell these organisations that I think their stance is appropriate.
Same sex marriage is right and inevitable.
When I read about Channel 7′s Sunrise decision to support same sex marraige I immediately sent them an email voicing my displeasure and my decision to no longer watch the show.
I also asked my Twitter followers to do the same. I encourage everyone here with access to social media to voice your opinion and have your Twitter/Facebook friends and followers to do so as well.
To Michael Pell, David Koch and Melissa Doyle,
I am deeply disappointed that Sunrise is joining GetUp and Marie Claire to promote same-sex marriage throughout this week and particularly this Thursday June 7th with the ido.org.au campaign.
What you’re actually promoting is not the redefinition of marriage, but making a stand to ‘un-define’ a union that since time immemorial has been the exclusive domain of a man united to a woman to the exclusion of all others.
As a national TV station, staffed by talented journalists, it is expected by your viewers and readership to be unbiased in your reporting. It goes against an age-old principle in good journalism – to be objective in your reporting.
One very rarely gets to read in today’s media what the research actually reveals (references below) about how children, raised by same-sex couples are really affected.
What you’ll find is children raised by same-sex couples experience:
1. poorer educational development
2. confused gender roles
3. increased homosexual identification
4. greater risk to their psychological identity.
Should same-sex marriage be passed as law in Australia, what is guaranteed to follow is a revamped education curriculum requiring all State schools – and all textbooks – to actively portray man-man and woman-woman unions, together with the homosexual lifestyle alternative in a positive light.
Watch Dr. Miriam Grossman, a Child psychiatrist in the USA, testify on SB48 before California Legislature in April 2012, warning of the dire consequences this will have on the development and well-being of young innocent children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eTglqQFkbGY
Making a stand for same-sex marriage is also making a stand to undermine male-female marriage. I cannot but make a stand against that which clearly undermines my union with my wife.
What’s to stop someone wanting to ‘marry’ their child, sister or brother or a group of people wanting to ‘marry’ one another? Where do you draw the line?
It’s also ludicrous to say gay marriage is a ‘human rights issue’! The Australian Government removed discrimination in 84 laws in 2008 and the European Court of Human Rights ruled in March this year that same-sex marriage is not a human right.
Michael, David and Melissa, I am sure you all strive to seek the truth and hopefully always want to know the facts about a topic or cause. I urge you therefore, together with your own spouses, to take the time and effort to read what the research below reveals about same-sex marriage and how it undermines marriage as we know it today.
To ‘un-define’ marriage would undermine the current community recognition of man-woman marriage as the optimal environment for raising children and place the future of Australian society at risk.
I will be writing to your partners – Purina, The Coffee Club, Accor Hotels, Myer and Jetstar expressing my disappointment and concern that your television show has chosen to actively show no respect for its wider audience, many of whom deem marriage to be that of one man united to one woman and who do not agree at all with the gay marriage lobby.
Sorry, but you’ve lost a viewer and moreso, my respect for you as journalists.
Regards,
Brenton Nicholls
++++++
Below is a list of references citing EVIDENCE that same-sex marriage is in fact detrimental for children of same-sex unions and radically undermines male-female marriage as we know it today:
Sarantakos, S., “Children in three contexts”, Children Australia, 1996, Vol 21, No 3.
Lerner, Robert and Nagai, Althea, 2001, No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting, Marriage Law Project, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC, 2003.
Morgan P., Children as trophies? : examining the evidence on same-sex parenting, Christian Institute, Newcastle, 2001.
Wardle, Lynn D, 1997, “The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children”, University of Illinois Law Review, Vol 1997, Issue 3, p 833.
Stacey, J and Biblarz, TJ “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?”, American Sociological Review, April 2001; http://www.scienzeformazione.unipa.it/doc/321/articolo1_.pdf
http://www.drtraycehansen.com/Pages/writings_sexpref.html
Rekers, G. Review Of Research On Homosexual Parenting, Adoption, And Foster Parenting, p 2;
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ResearchReviewHomosexualParenting.pdf
O’Leary, D., One Man, One Woman, Sophia Institute Press, 2007, extract available at:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/science_myths_and_same_sex_parenting/
http://www.preservemarriage.ca/docs/France%20-%20summary.pdf
Kurtz, S. “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia : The ‘conservative case’ for same-sex marriage collapses”, Weekly Standard, 2 February 2004:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp
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* * * ADVICE FROM ACL MODERATOR TO ‘GAY BOY’, ‘LLOYD’, ‘ADRIAN PRUST’, ‘FAG’, ‘TIMOTHY STEVENS’, ‘CHRIS CARRICK-HAYES’, ‘CRITICIZE-O-BOT’ AND OTHERS * * *
Abusing Christians and /or ACL with four-letter-words does nothing to enhance your arguments. Arguments ostensibly about ‘equal love’.
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Hi guys, I’m going to be holding up banners with my prayer group thursday morning outside of their studio in sydney. Feel free to join in, I will be the girl with red shoulder length hair holding a blue sign that says “No future from gay marriage”, we will be holding a short prayer service afterwards for anyone that would like to join
God bless,
Dawn-Francesca Kutha
Dawn and others,
I’m in Melbourne but I will be praying for you.
May the Lord bless and protect you all.
Anthony McGregor
It’s telling that the chief complaint of pro-change activists is that Christians are personal and demeaning in their arguments against change; yet they take licence to personally abuse and insult with a range from inaccurate labels such as homophobia through to completely vile language and expletives not fit to be published in their responses.
I wrote to Sunrise, their sponsors, and the Today Show (encouraging them to continue objectivity).
Dear Sunrise,
I am appalled that your show has decided to become a judge of ethical and moral issues and to disrespect so many of your viewers’ values and beliefs by positioning yourselves as advocates for Gay Marriage.
Aristotle wrote, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” Changing the definition of a millennia old institution to pander to the demands of a vocal minority is exactly that.
The vitriolic bile spewed by the intolerant bigots that abuse people who disagree with them and prefer to maintain the status quo (rather than acquiesce to socially-transient moral relativism they would force on the majority) is the real intolerance which you now appear to condone and in fact, promote.
What makes Sunrise more qualified to decide Gay Marriage is a ‘human rights issue’ then the European Court of Human Rights which ruled less than three months ago that same-sex marriage is not a human right? I’m all for gay rights, and support the Australian Government’s removal of discrimination in 84 laws four years ago – but Gay Marriage is NOT A RIGHT. Who are you to take sides?
Your profession is sinking to greater depths of loathsomeness when journalists, supposedly the neutral umpire and facilitator of public debate, indulge in self-congratulatory adjudication of long-settled moral issues stirred up by fringe issue agenda lobby groups such as misrepresent the Gay Marriage issue. Your leftist media cult is the new religion of secularism – woe betide any who should publicly breath heresy against her hypocritical dogma of infinite tolerance and hedonistic rationalised morality!
While there is a choice between shows that do not promote fringe minority agendas and presume to arbitrarily decide the right and wrong of public debate under the thin veil of journalism, you may rest assured – I will be actively avoiding your show and communicating this to all your main advertisers.
Posted to Sunrise-”I am writing to express my disappointment that your show is supporting same sex marriage. Please stop and consider the effect this issue will have on our future children and generations to come. This is a selfish issue and the media does not seem to be looking at its consequences. You will be remembered by your stance and held accountable by the children who will have no right to know their heritage because of your outspoken and irresponsible views in order to please a supposed majority. I will no longer support your show or any of your advertisers or supporters until you show that you care and consider the our future children.”
Thankyou ACL for your courageous lead in these issues
I was outside Channel 7 attending the rally when the debate between Dr. Kerryn Phelps and Jim Wallace was being recorded and broadcast [7 June 2012]. There were about 12 – 15 of us supporting “traditional marriage’ and about 150 -200 ‘I Do’ supporters for same-sex marriage.
I missed the TV broadcast so I cannot comment on the actual broadcast. The video on the Channel 7 website seems to have tried to present a balanced debate by showing pictures of the rally with a predominance of our display panels in support of traditional marriage.
We are now in a critical stage of the battle and I hope and pray that more people will support ACL at this time.
I believe we need to dialogue with supporters of same -sex marriage and defend our position and begin to write down their arguments and objections. Pray about each and seek the wisdom and understanding to respond in a sympathetic and constructive way showing our empathy, maybe even some degree of agreement.
There is a lot justifiable anger and hatred. Just listening to some of their arguments opened my eyes a little to the pain and anguish, the physical and emotional damage, many have experienced.
The reason I fight so strongly against same-sex marriage is the concern that accepting same-sex marriage will draw more people, particularly young people on the borderline of sexual experimentation, into a quagmire of sexual perversion and depravity to the point where they loose all self respect and in their guilt, anger and frustration, not only damage themselves, but also those closest and dear to them.
Similar to the circumstances of self loathing that are associated with addiction to drugs, gambling and alcohol
There is a great need for counselling, loving support and empathy. Perhaps this is the motivation behind the supporters of legalised same-sex marriage. A cry for loving acceptance by the general community for hurting people that have been sexually abused.
I am aware that my understanding and experience is limited as I try to empathise with both viewpoints.
I cannot see an easy way. Just because alcohol was legalised did not prevent the human suffering. Legalised same-sex marriage will not ease the suffering and only legitimise the equality of other sexual abuses and perversions.
Sick of the propaganda that the majority of Australians support “gay marriage”, because they simply DON’T! The 2011 Australian Census told us ONLY 3 in every 1000 people live in any form of male or female homosexual relationship! The Census also told us that 78% of the population believed in “God” with the vast majority of those identifying the Christian God. The majority of the 78% would definitely NOT support “gay marriage”, though exceptions can be found and are often misquoted as representing the majority when they don’t! And of the 22% that don’t believe in God, I am certain there must be at least some who DO NOT support “gay marriage”. The numbers in support often portrayed in the media DO NOT stack up! And after witnessing first hand extreme tampering of on-line poll numbers AND poll questions (some times even mid poll!!) on a number of occasions in support of the pro argument, my opinion remains unequivocal!