Love and marriage (union/partnership/relationship)

What is the difference? The only difference is that marriage and the ACT scheme require a ceremony while the Tasmanian scheme does not require it. It leaves the issue of a ceremony to the private choice of the couple involved. How, on any criteria, could a law that gives more choice rather than mandating on outmoded form, be described as “watered down and second rate”?

Myth: The Tasmanian law is “watered down and second rate” because it only allows the registration of a pre-existing intimate relationship, not the creation of a new intimate relationship.

Reality: As already stated, unless it’s being done for ulterior motives, marriage IS the registration of a pre-existing intimate relationship. Furthermore, and to turn the argument on its head, under the Tasmanian law, two people could meet one day, and the following day (if they so wished), begin the process for registering a Deed of Relationship. All they have to prove to the Tasmanian Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages is that they are adult, not already married or in a registered relationship, and that they are residents. How is this different to marriage or to the ACT’s “civil partnership”?

Myth: The Tasmanian law is “watered down and second rate” because it equates same-sex relationships with companions (non-conjugal relationships) rather than spouses in a marriage.

Reality: this myth totally misunderstands the policy behind the Tasmanian law. The Tasmanian law was designed to achieve equality between heterosexual marriage, same sex unions, and intimate relationships that do not involve a sexual (conjugal) aspect.

Socially speaking, all of these relationships are of equal value. We should not have a legal hierarchy that validates marriage over other forms of intimate relationship. Thus, the Tasmanian law “dethrones” marriage and treats it like other categories of intimate relationship. It does not treat same-sex partnerships “the same as” companions and “less than” marriage. It recognises that all these relationships are socially important and treats them equally before the law.

So, if all of this debate about relationship-recognition schemes has little to do with reality and has perpetuated so many falsehoods, the question must be asked: why? What are the political imperatives behind the legal lies?

The Tasmanian scheme is, and always has been, a civil union scheme. That is how it is viewed internationally. The (supposed) distinction between a “registration” and a “civil union” scheme did not exist until the ACT government decided to make it. Why? Because they wanted to “sell” their scheme (which merely mimics marriage) as somehow “better” than the Tasmanian scheme.

The distinction was then perpetuated by the Howard government and is still being perpetuated by the Rudd Government. Why? Because they are paranoid about the political influence of the Christian lobby and the Christian lobby (mistakenly) thinks that a “civil union” is too much like marriage, while a “registration” is not.

The Christian lobby fought hard to prevent the Tasmanian Relationships Act from being passed, but, having failed, they seem to have a fundamental psychological need to make everyone believe it is second rate and “not like” marriage.

The Rudd Government should stop pandering to them and do what is morally required and legally mandated under international human rights law by providing a national civil union law or at least allowing all state and territory jurisdictions to make their own decisions so that they may join Tasmania (and potentially the ACT and Victoria) in establishing civil union schemes.

The choice of whether those schemes merely “mimic” marriage (like the ACT) or go far beyond it (like Tasmania) should be left to the governments involved.