Marriage law benefits all Australians

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 18 Aug 2013.

With the Prime Minister now locked in to legislating for same sex marriage within one hundred days of a September 7 election win, it’s worth pointing out that even a referendum that voted down gay marriage would not necessarily stop the States from enacting their own laws.

But as Labor MP Greg Donnelly observed in a dissenting statement attached to a recent report to the NSW Parliament:

it is naïve and wishful thinking to believe that with all the work and effort put in over the decades to create a single national framework, the Commonwealth would just sit idly by and allow a state to undo [a marriage law that] has been put into place for the benefit of all Australians…

Such legislation, if it were to pass the New South Wales Parliament, would most certainly be challenged. I believe that the High Court of Australia would find such a legislative initiative invalid and inoperative.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.