Sydney
7 September 2003
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Tasmania accused
on same-sex adoption and ‘marriage’
Refugee
kids freed, but for how long?
Matter
of perspective
Archbishop
honours Year 12 students
Treasured
Gospels from Holy Island
Own
faith is vital to dialogue – cardinal
Marist
laity unity move
$50,000
for Susan’s pilgrimage
Good
Shepherds find green pastures
Upgraded
Bulls go into bat against their demons
Editorial:
A parallel universe?
Letters:
Age of consent
Conversation:
Prof Friedhelm Mennekes, parish priest and art lecturer - Space for art in a sacred
space
Why
the world is the way it is
1500
reasons to be proud of his school
Brothers
died on mission to save their leader
‘Don’t
forget your people back home’
Pius
XII – Hitler, the Holocaust and ‘Canossa’
On
‘going to Canossa’
Laity,
clergy share the pastoral load
Pell
embraces Cardinal's vision for Sydney Synod
Kylie
on line to help kids
Engadine
sisters in Columban art show
Editorial: A parallel universe?
Does the Tasmanian Parliament really reflect its electorate? It is certainly not likely or even remotely credible that either the Liberal or Labor party declared in its platform at the last election that it was promoting legislation that would ultimately lead to the legalisation of same-sex marriages.
The Tasmanian Parliament is home to a mixed bag of political philosophy. This is the product, and major negative side effect, of the Hare-Clark electoral system which, although arguably the fairest system yet devised, shackles the island state with multi-member electorates. It would be an ideal system in an ideal world. But, as the Tasmanian Parliament has shown, this is not an ideal world.
Labor controls the Assembly with 14 seats to seven Liberal and four Greens. The Legislative Council is more of a rag, tag and bobtail outfit, with Labor in the minority with five MPs ranged against the 10 Independents who fill the remaining seats.
It might seem, given this scenario, that it is easy to be dismissive of Tasmania as a backwater whose decisions or actions don’t matter much on the world stage. But the move towards the legalisation of same-sex marriages, which will allow people in a same-sex relationship to adopt their partner’s children, is not a crackpot move from the Flat Earth Society.
It comes from the Tasmanian Attorney-General, the Labor Party’s Judy Jackson, who has – in the words of Hobart’s Archbishop Adrian Doyle – proposed “the establishment of a parallel universe, equivalent to marriage, for same-sex couples, including some adoption rights”.
The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr George Pell, put the Church’s position succinctly and effectively last year.
“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” he said. The Church's view on sexuality “is clear and unequivocal, and derives from natural moral law, which we believe is unchanging”.
He reinforced this view last month, commenting on the Vatican’s call on Catholic MPs to oppose moves to legalise same-sex ‘marriages’. Homosexual acts are wrong, closed to the gift of life, he said.
“Men and women are made for one another and express their love for each other sexually, give birth to children and nurture them,” the archbishop said.
Moves to give legal status to unnatural unions “should be opposed consistently, courteously and reasonably”.
This should apply to the Tasmanian move, too.