A clear case of prejudice
Two days ago the Democratic Audit of Australia released a report titled "How well does the Australian democracy serve sexual and gender minorities?". The answer is not very well at all, really. While significant advances have been made at State and Territory level, little advancement in rights of sexual minorities occurred at federal level. The report found:
… significant areas in which inequality and discrimination persist, most damningly in the area of relationship recognition in the federal sphere. Here Australia lags well behind many other comparable countries, with the current federal government demonstrating considerable political hostility towards these equality claims. This persistent antagonism to claims for equality and same-sex relationship recognition suggests that reform at the federal level is unlikely to advance any further at least until a change of government. In contrast,the States and Territories have, for the most part, been responsive to demands for legislative and policy change.
This finding is entirely consistent with the findings of the HREOC Same Sex, Same Entitlements Inquiry which found 58 federal laws that discriminate against same sex couples in almost every conceivable area of life. In response to the Inquiry Howard protested "We certainly aren't a government that supports discrimination", but in the next breath declined to do anything about the discriminatory laws which, as HREOC found, could all be remedied by one simple amendment. John Anderson did one better, stating that, apart from marriage, he couldn't think of any laws that discriminated against same sex couples (obviously reading the HREOC report was out of the question)
The government's failure to do anything about the persistent and unjustifiable discrimination against gays and lesbians can only be explained by an ideological hostility to same-sex relationships. In short - the government is driven by prejudice. Whether that prejudice is described as homophobia or as something else - it is not rational, it is not just, it is a violation of human rights of a sizable minority of Australians and it has no place in the modern society.
If any more evidence was needed that the government's approach is motivated by prejudice - consider Ruddock's response to a request from Justice Michael Kirby to change the law so that his partner of 38 years can access his pension on the same basis as the heterosexual partners of the other judges. what exactly would be the harm in reviewing the law? It is not even a situation where the government could cry "think of the children" as it has done in response to other proposed changes. There can only be one reason not to do so and that is that the government is content to allow discrimination to continue because it is in line with its ideological position.
Unfortunately rights of sexual minorities are unlikely to be an election issue, precisely because they are "minorities". However, before casting our vote, the rest of us would do well to remember that prejudice and discrimination against a minority within our society devalues our society as a whole.
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