Marriage in Australia
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
2 May 2004
1300 people gathered at St Joseph’s College in Hunters Hill recently for the National Catholic Family Gathering. It was a great occasion, with special programmes for children and a Youthfest. It was an opportunity for people to talk about the difficulties that sometimes confront families, and was particularly useful for the 150 unmarried young adults who attended.
Family life in most Western countries is under pressure. The Federal Government’s intention to legislate against the possibility of same-sex marriage is an important measure to buttress marriage, and I believe it has the support of the vast majority of Australians.
There has been a massive expansion of family breakdown over the last thirty years. No one wants to interfere in other people’s private lives, or to pass judgements on their family circumstances. But behind the statistics is a huge reservoir of individual suffering and rising social costs. We should not be indifferent to this.
In considering same-sex marriage, therefore, the first question is whether it would help improve this situation or actually make it worse. Would it help make family life more stable, or would it make the growing instability worse?
Decades of international research have made it abundantly clear that the best setting for bringing up children is one based on the marriage of their natural parents. This is not a matter of interpretation or personal opinion or religious faith. It is a matter of hard fact.
There are always exceptions. There’s no doubt that some single- and de-facto parents do a great job in turning out happy and confident children. But this result is most consistently achieved when parents are married.
Almost 75 per cent of couples in Australia live together before getting married. Many marry when they decide to have children. This reflects a common understanding that marriage is bound up with being a parent.
But the linkage between marriage and family is slipping. More people are choosing not to marry at all, even when they have children. Allowing same-sex marriage would cut the link between marriage and natural parenthood and accelerate this trend.
Same-sex couples already enjoy most of the rights and privileges that were once exclusive to marriage. Allowing them to marry would bring no further benefits to them, but it would undermine traditional marriage in the wider society. This would have real social (as well as individual) costs. It is not discrimination to put the good of society ahead of the wishes of one small group which is divided on this issue.
The government’s amendments are do not change much, but they will merely help ensure that if the meaning of marriage is to be changed in Australia, it will have to be changed by parliaments elected by the people after a full public debate, rather than being changed by stealth through the courts. There should be bi-partisan support for this proposal.
