Let the people decide on gay 'marriage'

So in my State of Queensland the Liberal National Party frames its opposition to gay marriage on the secular grounds of the rights of the child. Its policy “affirms the fundamental right and deep emotional need of a child to have both a mother and a father; notes that same-sex marriage makes it impossible for children to have both a mother and a father; and therefore opposes the legislation of same-sex marriage.”

The federal Coalition recognises marriage as only between man and woman although there is agitation in the party room to abandon its position and adopt a conscience vote. If marriage is fundamentally about the needs of children and their right, where possible, to be raised by both a mother and a father, a principled party will defend that as policy.

The constitutional larrikinism of Territories and States meddling with marriage needs to be quashed by the High Court. But beyond that, such a radical reordering of society would demand the ultimate democratic authority of a referendum. 

Give all Australians a conscience vote on this proposed revolution in marriage and family, with its deliberate creation of generations of motherless or fatherless children and its cultural enshrining of Mardi Gras morality. I have faith in the Australian people that, faced with a choice between the demands of two men to be called a marriage and the needs of a child to have, where possible, both a mum and a dad, they will vote on behalf of the child.