One of federal parliament’s most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage, Liberal backbencher Cory Bernardi, has conceded that he will bow to the will of the people if a plebiscite on the issue is successful.
Bernardi went head to head with Labor’s Penny Wong, herself in a long-term lesbian relationship, during a heated but respectful debate on same-sex marriage.
The Liberal senator refused to endorse a plebiscite – after reports that Tony Abbott was canvassing colleagues on potentially holding one after the next election – but Bernardi said that if it comprehensively endorsed same-sex marriage, he would respect it.
“Who am I to argue with that, quite frankly?” he asked.
Bernardi argued that the same-sex marriage debate was not about discrimination, because marriage itself is naturally occurring and therefore never defined.
“It was not invented, marriage simply is,” he said. “This campaign is not about equality, it’s about personal desire and self-interest of a vocal minority.”
“There is no need to redefine marriage on the basis of equality. To do so is to live in a dictatorship of relativism where nothing is real, truths are denied if they’re considered inconvenient by the politically correct system,” Bernardi said.
“Marriage has always been defined as between a man and a woman and we’re seeking to redefine it, because they [same-sex couples] want entry into that club.”
That idea was hotly contested by Wong, who argued that barring same-sex couples from marriage was fundamentally an issue of discrimination.
“Australians in same-sex relationships experience injustice every day and if we achieve marriage equality, most things won’t change. The sun will rise, hetrosexual marriages won’t crumble, three-year-olds will still want more ice-cream than is good for them,” Wong said, to chuckles from the audience.
“But together we will have made a profound change. A statement to lesbian and gay Australians that we belong, that we are accepted, that our relationships matter, too,” she said.
“The bogeymen of the slippery slope, or warnings about our relations with Asia simply don’t stack up as reasons to deny equality,” she said, referring to arguments made in the past by Bernardi that redefining marriage could lead to bestiality or recognising multi-person unions.
Bernardi denies he linked same-sex marriage with bestiality, while Wong gave a strong undertaking that she would never support marriage between humans and animals.
“I would say to Cory, I would stand with you in a defence against bestiality being recognised in law,” she said.
Despite being on opposite sites of the debate, there was common ground between the two South Australian senators.
Both agreed that if same-sex marriage was legislated, that there should be personal exemptions for people on religious and ethnic grounds.
Wong said religious objections should not end the debate all together.
“Because of the religious views of some, the secular state on behalf of you should tell us we’re not allowed to marry. That is not co-existence, that is simply saying, ‘not allowed,’” she said.
But Bernardi said countries that have legislated for same-sex marriage have found that anti-discrimination laws do not efficiently take into account personal exemptions, and that business owners are often forced to go against their own beliefs or risk law suits.
Bernardi denied that momentum for change meant that same-sex marriage was inevitable.
“I don’t think anything is inevitable. It’s been said death and taxes are inevitable and there’s people working to stop those two things happening as well,” he said.
Wong agreed, quipping that it was the first time she had done so. “Progress is never made, and reform is never won, without us fighting for it and we’ll have to continue to do so,” she pledged.
