SSMD Down Under

There is one English speaking nation in the OECD which has not (yet) legalised same-sex marriage, at all.  (I use the term nation to include the UK, which is a union of four countries, of which one has not legalised same sex marriage.)  In that nation, Australia, there has been a protracted debate, or discussion (the SSMD of the title) and, most recently, a voluntary, non-binding postal survey on whether or not the law should be changed to permit same-sex marriage (SSM).

This was quite odd because the primary argument against legalising SSM seemed to be fundamentally religious – it’s just not the way things should be.  The old chestnut – “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” – encapsulates the notion.  But of the English speaking OECD nations, Australia is the second least religious (after the UK).  So, perhaps it wasn't a religious thing after all.

However, the Australian parliament seems to have a high proportion of god botherers and dyed-in-the-wool conservatives than the average population and some of them were getting desperate in their attempts to stave off the inevitable (polls consistently indicated that majority of Australians, and the vast majority of younger Australians, are in favour of legalising SSM).

For example, one member – Senator Paterson, was the front man for a bill that would legalise SSM, but would enshrine protections for religious freedom.  It seemed like Australia might well be heading towards its own version of the gay wedding cake debacle, depending on how you interpret the right of people to “refuse to participate in a same-sex wedding”.

Oddly enough, I find myself in the position of partially agreeing with the idea of protecting the freedoms of people with religious belief.  I am very much opposed to the idea that a priest should be forced to conduct a same-sex wedding against his convictions (I’m going with the percentages here and making the priest a “he”).  If religious people object to a same-sex wedding being conducted in their church, then those people should be able to shop around for a priest or pastor who shares their prejudices.  If a religious person doesn’t want to attend a homosexual marriage ceremony, then nobody should be forcing them to attend.

I find it a little odd that homosexual people (men in particular) would want to get married by an organisation that is guided by a book in which it is clearly stated that men who lie with men should be put to death.  But if a particular church is going gloss over that minor detail and put their god’s seal of approval on an SSM, then I suppose that’s fine.  And if a deeply (or indeed shallowly) religious person doesn’t want to attend a homosexual marriage ceremony, then nobody should be forcing them to attend.  (Were I planning to get married, I would prefer not to have people there who want to kill me.  It’d rather put a damper on things.)

But outside of that, it starts getting a little more complicated.  Should an artisan be required to produce a work of art celebrating an event that they have religious objections to, if asked to?  Should a more mundane craftsperson (like a baker) be required to produce some product for such an event?  Should the owner of an events locale be required to host the reception of newly wed homosexuals, despite religious misgivings?

Probably no.

I don’t agree that people necessarily should be stupid enough to believe that there’s some sort of god who was the ghost writer of a poorly-written instruction manual that is, in parts, thoroughly homophobic, but the fact is that we still have such people in our world.

My suggested solution is quite simple.  Private organisations should be permitted to discriminate when offering services for payment.  But only if they make it perfectly clear that this is their policy, including in any and all marketing they conduct.  If they don’t make it clear or make it insufficiently clear that they are prejudiced, then they must accept all comers.  And if their objections are religious, then they should have the courage of their convictions and be consistent in their prejudice.

So, for example, a reception hall who are discriminating on the basis of their religion would be required to have a prominent sign outside saying that they don’t permit receptions for anyone who has broken the laws of their god.  So no receptions for homosexuals, no receptions for brides who are not virgins, no receptions for people who work on the sabbath, no receptions for people who wear clothes of mixed fabric.

If a baker was discriminating on the basis of his conservatism, the same would apply, although the sign (and associated marketing) would probably have to make clear the full range of his prejudices: no homosexuals, no mixed-race unions, no drifters, no Irish, no atheists, no muslims, no gypsies and no jews.

Sometimes it will just be a single issue, non-affiliated prejudice.  But if a provider of products or service wants to systematically discriminate, why not let them – so long as they clearly indicate that they are carrying out that discrimination?

The result should be that the significant percentage of us who are not so prejudiced would then know where to not spend our money and whose weddings to not attend (because they are holding their reception at the Fifth Reich Resort which clearly advertises its “whites only” policy).  If the more reasonable among us are indeed in the majority, then market forces will come into play and the prejudiced will be dealt with via a form of economic Darwinism.  If we are not, then we need to do some more work and should not be resting on our laurels.

Barely hidden prejudice is, after all, still prejudice.

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Note: I am not being entirely serious here.  A little bit, but not entirely.  If the powers that be in Australia are going to permit discrimination against anyone on religious grounds, then I do believe that those who intend to take advantage of it should be willing to pay the price of being open about their prejudice.  And I reckon that they should be consistent, even if that were to mean that in future my atheism might exclude me from enjoying the fruits of certain bakeries … but consistency has never really been a strong point with the average religious bigot. 

Note also that the wording of a store's prejudiced objection should still be respectful, I am not suggesting a return to days when shops hung out signs blandly saying "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs".  Perhaps something more honest like:

"The proprietor of this store is legally airing his prejudices in accordance with the Bigoted Bastard Act (BBA 2017) and wishes all patrons to be aware that he is prejudiced against the following groups of people: [strike out all not applicable]

Women/Men/Children/Teenagers/Old People/Single People/Married People/People Living Together in Sin/Heterosexuals/Homosexuals/Metrosexuals/Whites/Blacks/Asians/Orientals/Hispanics/Indigenous/Canadians/Red Necks/Intellectuals/Geeks/Jocks/Feminists/Manpriders/Liberals/Conservatives/Football Fans/Hockey Fans/Soccer Fans/Baseball Fans/Star Wars Fans/Grammar Nazis/Plain Old Nazis/Conspiracy Nuts/Others (as listed below)

Furthermore, this prejudice will take the form of [strike out all not applicable]: No Soup For You/No Drink For You/No Cake For You/No Food For You/No Accounting For You/Other (as listed below)"

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I wrote this a week or so ago, and have thought further on the risks of forcing an artisan to create a piece of art against his or her religious beliefs.  I suspect the artist was not forced to take on this commission, but the artwork below hints at some sort of disagreement about the values involved:

The statue was commissioned for a Catholic school with some, ahem, shall we say "history".  Amusingly, the statue is now covered - with the child still in there, snuggled up to the saint's loaf, but now hidden under the cassock (well, it looks more like a burka than a cassock, but hopefully the allusion isn't entirely lost).

Advance Australia Confused

Professor Paul Ehrlich, while sometimes referred to as a "US academic" is actually a staff member of the University of Technology Sydney, so in a sense he is an "Australia academic" who happens to be American.  But then again, he spends most of his time in the US, so perhaps he should be more accurately referred to as a "US-Australia academic" - even if that might lead to confusion about his speciality, which is not the US-Australian relationship.

I bring this up because it is one of at least two errors of omission in an article by Australia's Channel 9 News.  The other is in a bald statement about a storm in a teacup regarding a Melbourne school:

Mr Jones' posed (a) question about national anthems in schools in response to a recent decision by a Melbourne school to allow its Muslim students to walk out of a school assembly and not sing 'Advance Australia Fair'.

When I saw this, noting that it was totally context-free, I got a little concerned.  Australia, like a few other nations in the world, has both legitimate issues with the spread of islamist fundamentalism and problems with right-wing nut-jobs who are truly "islamophobic".  A recent example of the latter is the fuss raised about the building of a mosque in Bendigo.  An example of the former is the shooting of a NSW Police employee by a 15 year old radicalised muslim boy (it seems that this radicalisation likely took place within a small group of "young men" who met with him in a local mosque - he was certainly given the weapon at that mosque).

There's a very thin line to walk here, if one is going to make the attempt to be rational.  Some bad things clearly went on in that mosque in Parramatta NSW, but that does not immediately mean that everyone in every mosque in every town in every state is going to be a bad person or radicalised into islamism.  Bendigo in Victoria already has a mosque of sorts, and already has a muslim community.  We have no reason to suspect that a significant proportion, or indeed any, of that community are radicalised or would present any risk to the larger community.

Despite that, large groups of protesters were bussed into the town to protest the building of the mosque.  And it is these people who are a problem, together with any radicalised members of the muslim community (or, in fact, any radicalised members of any community).

When I say together here, I mean two things.  Firstly, I am recognising that we have at least two groups that are problems.  People that a friend of mine calls "boofheads", people that exist on all sides, extremists of one sort or another.  Secondly, I am pointing to the fact that these extremists feed off each other.

The fact that there are large groups of protesters who turn up to agitate about a group of peaceful muslims, who want something better than a windowless room in which to pray, is used by existing radicalised muslims to argue their case and radicalise more young muslims.  Similarly, the shooting of a policeman by a radicalised young muslim is used by people leaning towards jingoism, fascism and racism (perhaps someone claiming that racism is not a factor in this could explain the correlation between the flag waving and objections to a mosque and why "Aussie Pride" is strongly correlated with both).

We need people in the middle to accept that there are problems on both sides and to be willing to deal with all the problems.  But as well as that, we need our news sources to be a little more free with information - rather than being misleading via their miserly use of facts.

It was true that a principal at a school in Melbourne allowed shi'a muslims to abstain from singing the national anthem, but there was a context.  This month is a ceremonial month of mourning for them, in which they abstain from all sorts of joyful activities, and boisterous singing of the national anthem was identified as too joyous for these students.  Perhaps it was a little over the top to encourage them (or permit them) to leave the area, but the point is that they weren't not singing the national anthem because of the national anthem per se, it wasn't an insult to the nation, their month of mourning would have them abstaining from singing any happy song - as interpreted by that particular group of shi'a (but not the community of shi'a as a whole in Victoria since one of their leading clerics had announced that singing the national anthem was ok).

And the intimation that this was an insult to Australia via a coordinated refusal to sing the anthem is something that the right-wing nut-jobs would pick up on immediately - which they did.

Even from my perspective as radical moderate, when I first read about the incident, I perceived it as an example of the regressive left, bleeding hearts of some sort facilitating the indoctrination efforts of extremist parents who were taking some sort of anti-Australian stand.  Fortunately, I happen to be the sort of person who likes to look at the facts a little more deeply before committing to anything and it didn't take long to see this for what it was.  Unfortunately, some others are not so keen to see things for what they are, they are far more interested in seeing what they want to see.

It is simply sad to see that even the more middle-of-the-road reporting of these sorts of incidents (like from Channel 9 News) plays directly into the hands of bigots and, in its turn, runs the risk of radicalising even more of our muslim youth.