SAME-SEX marriage is an issue for many older, married Australians but it is not a problem for the younger generation, Fr Frank Brennan SJ told ABC TV’s Q&A program on October 1.
By Anthony Barich
On the episode titled God, Sodomy and the Lash, Fr Brennan was asked what his views are on same-sex marriage and why Christian and Islamic societies seem to be against it.
Fr Brennan, Professor of Law at Australian Catholic University, replied: “My own view is, moving around the country (as chair of the National Human Rights Consultation Committee examining whether Australia needs a Bill of Rights), I think that younger Australians … don’t see (same-sex marriage) as a problem. It’s not an issue. I think that for a lot of older Australians it’s still an issue and, guess what, a lot of them happen to be married.”
“So in terms of a free and democratic society, for those who are civilly married, then we’ve got to bring them with us as we look at any change on that issue.”
As to why Christianity seems to be against same-sex marriage, he said: “People of a religious disposition may have a view about the sacramentality of marriage.”
However, the Australian Family Association, which was founded by Catholic intellectual Bob Santamaria, told The Record that organisations such as theirs have not used sacramentality as an argument in the public forum for the past 20 years, instead defending traditional marriage to promote the common good, including children’s right to a mother and a father, if it can be helped.
In his book Battle Lines, former Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said that if society is going to recognise same-sex marriage it should also “surely be capable of providing additional recognition to what might be thought of as traditional marriage”.
Fr Brennan said he sees the sacramentality argument as a separate question from the civil institution of marriage.
“In terms of the civil institution of marriage, I think one of the welcome developments in Australia is we’ve got to the stage of saying that discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexuality should be wiped out completely and that we’re a better society for that being the case,” he said.
“In terms of the next step, whether or not in civil law there should be a recognition of the bond between two men or two women as being the same as marriage as it’s presently understood, the real issue, I think, is whether or not that decision is best made by our elected politicians or whether it’s made by our elected judges.”
Waleed Aly, Politics lecturer at Monash University, where he also works for the Global Terrorism Research Centre, responded to the question on behalf of Islam by saying there is no definitive teaching on such subjects as “you can’t centralise authority to make definitive statements on behalf of God in the Islamic tradition”.
When asked by panel moderator Tony Jones whether homosexuality is a sin and whether, according to the Catholic Church, it is something one could go to hell for, Fr Brennan said that homosexuality is not a sin, but a disposition.
“If you want to argue whether particular homosexual acts are appropriate for an individual in a moral context, that would require a pastoral discussion with that individual,” he said.
Whether a society should have same-sex marriage, he said, is not an issue to be resolved by determining what the Catholic Church says to its own members on what it regards as moral or immoral.
“They’re quite distinct questions,” he said.
In response to the current inquiry into the federal Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide said that, “while recognising that there are many different relationships in our society, we can not give them all the same special and sacred status as marriage between a man and woman”.
In reference to the current Senate inquiry into the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill, the Australian Bishops’ Commission for Pastoral Life takes the position that “the centuries’ long tradition of marriage is not unfairly discriminatory to anyone and so should not be changed. In a pluralist society, if people wish to have different relationships to the tradition of marriage then society allows them to have such relationships.
“However, society should not allow them to change long standing traditions in order to suit their particular requirements or lifestyles”.