Yet again, the rights of lesbian and gay Canberrans are being sacrificed by government for the sake of expedient political goals.
The Rudd Government's position on the ACT's civil partnership law is immoral and illegal. It is immoral because it maintains a hierarchy that emphatically states heterosexual relationships are better than same-sex ones. It does this by saying that heterosexual unions are entitled to a publicly endorsed ceremony where the government validates the relationship, but same-sex unions are not.
The Rudd Government's position is also illegal because it breaches Australia's international human-rights obligations. The UN Human Rights Committee states same-sex relationships must be accorded equality by all governments in Australia.
The Howard government ignored this and the Rudd Government is doing the same. Rudd maintains the Howard government's position that the ACT's law "mimics" marriage and should thus not be allowed. This position is irrational and driven by paranoia over the electoral importance of the extreme religious lobby.
The ACT law does not "mimic" marriage, it simply sets up an alternative scheme for formalising the personal relationships of those who cannot or choose not to marry, a scheme similar to that in Tasmania and recently passed in Victoria. The Federal Government is persecuting the ACT purely because it can override ACT laws far more easily than a state's laws.
The Federal Government cannot admit this. Instead, it is inventing spurious rationales for attacking the ACT and leaving Tasmania and Victoria alone.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland has endorsed the Tasmanian civil union registry as a preferable model to the ACT's proposed civil partnerships scheme because the former "registers existing relationships" rather than "creating new ones through a ceremony".
This is simply wrong. The Tasmanian scheme confers on couples a new legal status with new legal rights. It does not simply register existing de facto relationships.
The only relevant difference between the ACT's law and that in Tasmania, and soon Victoria, is the ACT law demands couples have a ceremony if they want to access their new legal status and entitlements, while the others leave this up to the choice of the couples involved. The ceremonies in Tasmania around the signing and official witnessing of a Deed of Relationship are just as solemn and just as "official" as the ceremonies proposed for the ACT.
In short, all three schemes are effectively civil unions, but McClelland is exaggerating and misrepresenting the differences between them to justify his Government's opposition to the ACT's proposal.
Conveniently, McClelland's focus on state and territory schemes also diverts attention from a key issue which he as federal Attorney-General should be addressing; same-sex marriage. By hiding behind his fictionalised and unthreatening version of the Tasmanian scheme while demonising the ACT's proposal as more of a threat than it is, McClelland is avoiding the question that Australians want answered: why shouldn't same-sex partners marry?
This is not to say the Federal Government is the only government sacrificing gay and lesbian rights.
The Stanhope Government is also guilty. While its motives are laudable, the ACT Government has adopted poor strategy and has been intransigent on key points.
Jon Stanhope should also ask himself why forcing couples to have a ceremony is so important. The reason we have state civil union schemes is to provide greater choice in how relationships are recognised to those couples denied the choice of marriage. The same principle should be extended to ceremonies.
State schemes also serve important practical purposes such as allowing couples to prove their relationship status if and when this is challenged, for instance in a medical emergency. Why is Stanhope sacrificing these principles and benefits over such an unimportant issue as what form a ceremony takes?
Both governments have backed themselves into a corner at the expense of gay and lesbian rights. The Rudd Government should reassess the influence it allows the conservative Christian lobby to have over its policies.
The Stanhope Government should reassess its fetish for compulsory ceremonies. Such reassessment is essential if the human rights of gay and lesbian couples are to be respected.
Wayne Morgan is a senior lecturer in law at the Australian National University's College of Law