Use and abuse of the rights of the child
Yesterday I wrote about the prejudiced approach of the Howard government to the question of access to assisted reproduction technology, adoption and parental recognition for same-sex couples. I'd like to look at a slightly different aspect of the debate - the use of child rights or best interests of the child rhetoric to justify one's own prejudice and hatred.
Following the release of the Law Reform Commission report, a spokeswoman for the Australian Family Association said that the report "pays lip service to the needs of children" and stated that "We hope that the State Government puts it in the bin. There's virtually nothing in the report that seriously addresses the rights of the child."
Anyone who has read the LRC report will see that the needs and interests of the child are given careful consideration. The AFA statements suggest that they have either not read the report or, which is more likely, are pursuing an agenda which has nothing to do with interests of the child. There is a disturbing practice among right-wing and religious groups to rely on the "right of the child" to justify their bigotry. Anything they don't like - be it homosexuality, childcare or working mothers, they claim it to be against the rights of the child.
Because what is and what is not in the interests of the child is never defined, there is a great deal of flexibility in when this claim can be used. There is a reason why the definition is always absent. Defining what is in the "interests of the child" would immediately reveal the underlying prejudices and enable critique of the definition. It would have to be justified, rather than merely bandied around whenever these "concerned" adults need to conceal or explain away their hatred.
Lets take a look at the AFA and ask whether their rejection of the prospect of same-sex couples or singles adopting/accessing IVF stems from the interests of the child. If it does, there should be no underlying prejudices, there should be no hatred, there should just be concern for the welfare of the children and the basis for that concern should have some foundation based on evidence or objective facts.
The fact that the AFA has misstated the contents of the report is not an encouraging start. But lets look at this organisation's principles and history.
The AFA was formed in 1980 as an off-shoot of the National Civic Council by its then president B.A. Santamaria. Santamaria was a staunch catholic and supported such "admirable" political leaders as Franco and Mussolini. He was so strongly an anti-liberal traditionalist that he broke with the Catholic church because it was too liberal for his liking (he was later reconciled with the church by none other than George Pell, who was apparently conservative enough). By the way, John Howard is reported to have had strong admiration for Santamaria.
Lets take a look at the NCC, which AFA is an affiliate of. Anyone with a strong stomach can head over to their publication website - www.newsweekly.com.au, where they will be treated to interesting articles about how contraception will give you cancer; an account of a "scientific" study which concluded that "married gays" have a 24 year shorter life span, based on overwhelming evidence of reading about 30 obituaries in a newspaper; they will be told about the ground-breaking campaigns of anti-abortion groups and will be pleased to know that climate change is a dangerous myth. Enough said.
If anyone thinks that the AFA fell far from the tree - a visit to their website (www.family.org.au) and a quick search of the internet will tell you exactly what their ideology is and what standpoints their "rights of the child" rhetoric is designed to disguise. Their homepage if filled with calls for censorship, highly "objective" articles about abortion with titles such as "we kill babies", celebrations of Howard government legislating against recognition of foreign same-sex unions under non-positional titles such as "Marriage - We won!" and warnings that "Australia is dying", presumably designed to encourage women to pop out more babies.
The top four links on their link page are Australian Christian Lobby, Endeavor Forum, Festival of Light and Focus on the Family Australia (all of them "Christian-right" organisations.)
If that is not enough, there is an excellent collection of quotes from various publications of the AFA, which very neatly illustrate its views on same-sex relationships, discrimination and, just as interestingly, child abuse. While AFA apparently does not believe that a loving same sex family is in best interests of the child, it is on record as supporting corporal punishment of children and opposing government measures to prevent child abuse! Beating kids is ok, if its done in a traditional heterosexual family.
Anyone who does not yet feel nauseous after reading these statements, consider the following few passages from an article by Bill Muehlenberg of the AFA (http://www.family.org.au/Journals/2003/challenge.htm):
"Even in purely nonreligious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty and, in the words of one…educator, of 'human construction.' It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding, and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as a minority martyrdom…"
"…we are "defining deviancy downwards". Deviancy has reached such huge proportions that in order to deal with the problem, we have changed the way we think about normality and abnormality. What used to be regarded as deviant behaviour is now reclassified as normal, and what we used to call normal behaviour we now call abnormal. Thus the only abnormality now is to be "homophobic". Indeed, the pressure by the gay lobby to redefine deviancy resulted in the 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the listing in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Mental Disorders (DSM-1)"
"Also, it needs to be stressed than whenever you grant special rights to homosexuals you have to take rights away from other people. If gays are granted special rights to force homeowners to rent to them, those homeowners will have lost certain rights - the right to conscientiously choose who one wishes to rent to, for example. If a homosexual is granted the right to teach sex education in schools, the parent of the child in that school loses the right to have a say in the moral calibre of the teacher.
Admittedly, morality and law is not based on numbers, but how is it fair that one and a half percent of the population should be granted special rights at the expense of the other 98.5 per cent? Why should Australia's four and a half million families be forced to concede rights to Australia's 250,000 homosexuals?"
"discrimination is both desirable and healthy. In the same way that society "discriminates" against 8-year-olds by not granting them licenses to drive, so society "discriminates" against those who choose to remain outside of the institutions of marriage and the natural family."
And my favourite one is:
"And we need to remember that all homosexuals deserve to be treated with respect, love and compassion, even though society has a legitimate right to dislike and censure homosexual behaviour and activity. Society, for example, can rightly disapprove of alcoholism, while seeking to help individual alcoholics. So too, society has a right to deem homosexual behaviour as unhealthy, a threat to the family, and not in the best interests of society, while ensuring that individual homosexuals are not vilified or roughly treated."
What does the above mass of disgusting quotes illustrate? That the AFAs position has absolutely nothing to do with children's interests. It has to do with hatred, it has to do with prejudice, it has to do with medieval, conservative religion-inspired attitudes. The claim of children's rights to mask this bigotry cheapens and devalues these rights, it makes them nothing more than a smokescreen for hatred. It is rank hypocrisy for an organisation which supports beating children and opposes laws to protect children from abuse to use children's rights in such a way. The rights and needs of children are more important than that, as are the rights of people who love a person of the same sex.
Thanks for reading. Now I need to go and scrub my monitor.
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