Seeing red: why John Pilger is wrong on marriage equality

Most of all older left-wingers seem to have forgotten how the aspiration to marry free from state interference drove both the African-American and Aboriginal-Australian civil rights movements of the 1950s and 60s.

One of the key victories of the American civil rights movement was the Supreme Court decision to overturn laws against interracial marriages in 1967. 

Aboriginal Australians also placed a high value on the right to “bourgeois acceptability”. Freedom to marry regardless of race was near the top of their list of demands in the lead up to the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights, above child custody and access to traditional lands and second only to the right to vote.  

The philosopher Hannah Arndt explained why freedom to marry was so pivotal to black civil rights movements: “The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which 'the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one's skin color or race' are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It is one thing for John Pilger to ignore both the evolution of marriage and its pivotal role in the great human rights movements of the late 20th century.

But it is even worse for him to misunderstand what marriage equality means to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Marriage equality is about much more than two guys walking down the aisle together. 

The international research shows allowing same-sex marriages equality reduces levels of anxiety and depression among same-sex attracted people, and strengthens our relationships and families, not least because it gives us a stronger sense of belonging and inclusion in a traditionally hostile world.

On top of this, marriage equality clearly establishes the boundary between church and state. It confirms that none of us should be judged and entitled according to our gender. As with the movement for interracial marriage, it removes unnecessary state meddling from our lives.

One of the few Australian intellectuals to come to grips with the deeper meaning of marriage equality is Raymond Gaita. He writes: “When gays ask to be granted the right to marry, they are not asking for something that can be adequately conceptualised by an ideal of equality that demands equal access to good and opportunities for all citizens of a polity. Nor do they ask for something that can adequately be expressed in classical liberal ideals. They ask, I believe, for the recognition, by their fellow citizens, of the depth and dignity of their sexuality; and they ask it from those of their fellow citizens who appear to believe that gay sexuality does not have the kind of depth that deserves to be celebrated in marriage.”

I would go further. The freedom to marry has traditionally been denied to all those people – women, servants, prisoners, native people, people with disabilities, and now gays – who were considered too infantile and morally irresponsible to make such an important life decision themselves. 

In equal measure, the granting to these people of the freedom to marry sent out the most powerful message possible that they are capable of morally responsible decisions, and by virtue of this are fully adult, fully citizens and fully human.