PM : “I’m not homophobic but…”

John Howard, when quizzed about same-sex marriage, gay adoption rights and access to IVF, likes to assure those doing the questioning that he is “completely tolerant and fair minded about people’s sexual preference”. I’ve reviewed some of the PM’s past comments on these issues, and I’m not so sure that his claim to tolerance and understanding stands up to even the mildest scrutiny.

For example, in August 2001, Howard found himself fending off questions from students on a Triple J “Talkback Classroom” Interview.

STUDENT: So if we had a scale with total acceptance of homosexuality on one end and total rejection and abuse of homosexuality on the other, where would you place yourself?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh I’d place myself somewhere in the middle.

This doesn’t sit well with Howard’s claim that his is a view of “complete tolerance” when it comes to homosexuality. I think sometimes he feels the need to remind social conservative voters that he’s still one of them. In the same interview he was asked:

STUDENT: Do you recall an interview in 1996 with Ray Martin in which you said you would be disappointed if you had a son that was gay. Would you like to clarify what you mean by disappointed?

…to which he responded…

PRIME MINISTER: …I said I wouldn’t love him any less but I did go on to say that I’d be disappointed and I would. There’s nothing to clarify, I haven’t met a parent yet who wants their children to grow up gay.

I see. “I have nothing against gay people but if my son was gay I’d be disappointed”. His assertion about parents not wanting their children to grow up gay is also interesting. Do parents frequently convey this message upon meeting the PM? Or perhaps because no one has told him “I want my child to grow up gay” he’s arrived at the conclusion that all parents must be thinking the opposite?

Howard frequently refers to marriage as a “benchmark/bedrock institution of our society”. For example, here, here, here, here and here. Here’s a few extracts:

…marriage is commonly understood by everybody, including gay people, is a bedrock institution of society…

…there are certain benchmark institutions in our society that ought to be defended and promoted…

What I’m in favour of is defending the benchmark institutions of our society…

…marriage, as we understand it, is one of the bedrock institutions of our society…

…[marriage] is seen as the bedrock institution…

…many people, and I’m one of them, see marriage as one of the bedrock institutions of society…

You get the picture. And if we “muck around” with this “bedrock institution”, the PM believes there will be serious ramifications for the “continuity of our kind of society” because the “continuity of our society depends on there being a margin for marriage” and “if you don’t preserve it for what it is commonly understood to be, its value over time … will be reduced”. That is to say, “if you allow unions between men and men or women and women to be given the same status it will over time erode the value and therefore, erode the special character and therefore the contribution to society of marriage”. Howard believes that marriage is “very much about the raising of children, the having of children, and the continuation of our species” so we should only have marriages between men and women because they “contribute to the continuity and the stability of society”. Okay?

So you see, Howard has nothing against gay people. He merely believes that allowing them to enter into a civil marriage contract “in different ways reduces the status of marriage”, which in turn sets us on a journey down that long slippery slope into oblivion.

What a complete spanner.