The Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser has recently introduced a private members bill on civil unions for same-sex couples. The debate is ongoing, but submissions to the relevant committee considering the bill closed today. Below is my submission, on behalf of the Australian Libertarian Society.
Submission to the Legal Affairs, Police, Corrective Services and Emergency Services Committee
RE: CIVIL PARTNERSHIP BILL 2011
On behalf of the Australian Libertarian Society (ALS), I would like to suggest that the government does not belong in marriage at all. The debate about how the government should regulate our love lives and our personal relationships rests on the idea that the government should be involved in the first place. That starting assumption is flawed. Love and relationships do not become better or worse because you inform a politician. Few married people conclude that their love is real only because it has been approved by Anna Bligh or Julia Gillard.
A marriage or civil union is an agreement between two people, and the only people who should be able to make that decision are the people involved. So long as the people involved are consenting adults, there is no reason for the government to restrict their right to form a contract with each other. The idea that the government should restrict the basic economic freedom to contract, on the basis that the parties to the contract are the same sex, is a perplexing attack on liberalism and the rule of law.
Ideally, the government should fully deregulate “marriage”. But if the government insists on continuing its weird fixation with documenting our love lives, then at the very least they should conduct their kinky hobby without discrimination. Personal discrimination is necessary and normal in everyday life, but government discrimination should never be tolerated because the government has the privileged position of being able to impose their views on others through force, and without direct consent.
In case this isn’t clear, let me state it simply — marriage should be fully deregulated, but if that is considered “too radical” then the government should at least allow for same-sex civil unions.
Defenders of marriage will rightly say that marriage is traditionally a religious concept. If only it had stayed that way. I suggest that religious groups should be free to discriminate according to their beliefs, just as we all discriminate every day regarding who we date, meet, support, visit, like, etc. However, that discrimination must not be done with the backing of government. Churches should always be free to *not* conduct a same-sex marriage or a same-sex union, but that decision should be left to each church, and not imposed by the government.
Freedom is now considered a quaint concept in most of the western world, including Australia. While political talking heads will argue passionately about how the government should run our lives, most people are genuinely perplexed when they hear the idea that perhaps the government should not run our lives at all. Many people now feel comfortable in their gilded cage, debating about the rules that our “leaders” should impose on us. This letter is in support of civil unions, and to let you know that some of us still believe in human self-ownership and reject the idea of government control of our lives.
You may set restrictive laws if you like. I will consider obeying them. Who is Ron Paul?
Kind Regards,
John Humphreys
Australian Libertarian Society
libertarian.org.au
Australian Libertarian Society (old site) 
A great letter, and I agree with basically everything. I admit I wouldn’t have included the “Ron Paul” thing since Paul does have a paleocon streak which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. That said, the letter is fantastic and very well-written with just the right touch of acerbic tone.
With the quote; “Personal discrimination is necessary and normal in everyday life, but government discrimination should never be tolerated because the government has the privileged position of being able to impose their views on others through force, and without direct consent.”
Children now become the next tyrannical cause, where not even the court system is used, but a specialist department, (Child Support Agency), where a person’s (majority of the time being the father) whose earnings are seized and given to the other party, (majority of the time the mother). Asset, and earnings are seized for the benefit of the children, but that part will never be followed through, (the money will be spent on the children, and not just pocketed by the mother). Oh yes, don’t forget if an employer refuses to co-operate, they too have penalties of fines and imprisonment.
It almost is begging belief that same union partnerships are begging for government interference, while ignoring the scratch from above.
I agree that with the problem of people who cannot accept other’s differences that their will is placed onto the government, to pass that interference onto the rest of us.
Re-pasted below
If I may start with:
Irony is asking government to fix the problems it caused
I here am attempting to highlight the government interference at the dissolving of a marriage.
Not only is the Orwellian name, “The Family Court”, deals with the breakdown of the family, but anyone who has been though the experience, knows how with all the rhetoric, the institution does all it can to encourage family break-down. The party, who had nothing to start with at the beginning of the Union, will receive the bulk of assets from the other party, once the union is dissolved. And that is before we start to have children involved in the picture.
With the quote; “Personal discrimination is necessary and normal in everyday life, but government discrimination should never be tolerated because the government has the privileged position of being able to impose their views on others through force, and without direct consent.”
Children now become the next tyrannical cause, where not even the court system is used, but a specialist department, (Child Support Agency), where a person’s (majority of the time being the father) whose earnings are seized and given to the other party, (majority of the time the mother). Asset, and earnings are seized for the benefit of the children, but that part will never be followed through, (the money will be spent on the children, and not just pocketed by the mother). Oh yes, don’t forget if an employer refuses to co-operate, they too have penalties of fines and imprisonment.
It almost is begging belief that same union partnerships are begging for government interference, while ignoring the scratch from above.
I agree that with the problem of people who cannot accept other’s differences that their will is placed onto the government, to pass that interference onto the rest of us.
Thanks. I originally had “who is John Galt”, but I have more disagreements with Rand than I do with Paul. Also, can you please e-mail me on john.humphreys99@gmail.com
Who is Ron Paul indeed. Coming from what I will call a Christian Libertarian perspective I think this is agreeable to people in the church who stop and think.
Don’t make us consecrate what they do, and don’t make them hold to a standard they don’t believe in. Otherwise the option seems inevitably to be making us hold to a standard that is anathema.
Bloody hell but I wish we had a Ron Paul here.
No problem. Have emailed you.
I think the only fair option is deregulation. With current attitudes among governments allowing gay marriage will only mean laws demanding that everyone else recognise it, including those whose religion prevents them from doing so. Marriage laws are effectively governments taking sides – if they say no gay marriage they side with the religious against the gays, and if they permit gay marriage they side with the gays against believers. The only thing a government can do is to get out of the debate altogether and take a position that defining marriage is not a government function. Then maybe we can get on to the long, long list of other things that shouldn’t be a government function either.
I wouldn’t have thought the first fall-back position from complete deregulation was civil unions. Complete deregulation means no government involvement at all. The next step is for governments to register marriages, once the role of the family bible etc. Registration would give the government the ability to refuse to register people who marry their dog or a light globe.
There are other fall-back options that come to mind too. Civil unions simply entrench marriage as a male/female institution, which is the issue in dispute.