Last night’s passing of Victorian legislation which, among other things, will enable two men to “order” a baby they are not even genetically connected to, is a blight on the State which will have ramifications for every future generation of Victorians, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said today.
“This legislation has been rushed through with no chance for proper public scrutiny as part of a year of radical social engineering by the Brumby Government, including giving Victoria the most obscene abortion laws of any state in Australia,” Mr Ward said.
“The passing of the bill last night, by the narrowest of margins, says that children do not deserve both a mother and a father, it says they can just be commissioned by adults who want them, regardless of gender or marital status.
“It will also mean that genuinely infertile women will now have to compete for access to infertility treatment with women who are ‘socially infertile’, and genetic material can be removed from a dead person and used to create a child.”
Mr Ward said the legislation was meant to be subject to a ‘conscience’ vote but that the term was very loosely applied.
“It was appalling to see this take-one-take-all legislation rushed through on the basis of people’s sympathy for infertile couples, with such little real scrutiny and a number of Labor MPs being heavied to ensure their ‘conscience’ vote lined up with the Brumby and Hulls agenda,” Mr Ward said. “This is not the way parties should be enforcing such radical social change on the community.”
Mr Ward added that a particularly disappointing aspect of the passage of this bill was the support for it provided by Liberal MLC Bruce Atkinson who, in breaking ranks with his colleagues, provided the vote that enabled the bill to pass.
“Mr Atkinson’s comments during the debate where he indicated that children from same-sex families had a “distinct advantage” stunned listeners,” Mr Ward said. “The voting public has a right to expect that Members holding a deciding vote on such important social issues should be better informed than this statement shows.”
Mr Ward said that there has been a lot of sympathy for removing unfair discrimination from same sex couples, but that the passing of this bill reveals not only the selfishness of the gay lobby’s agenda, but also the extremes to which it is prepared to go through its influence in misusing the democratic process to achieve its ends.
“The wishes of homosexuals to have children should not be placed above the inalienable rights of children to start out in life with a mother and a father.”
Media Contact: Rob Ward on 0408 348 352 or Glynis Quinlan on 0408 875 979
Australian Christian Lobby
Canberra, Australia
Tel: (02) 6259 0431
Fax: (02) 6259 0462
Mob: 0448 602 878
www.acl.org.au
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Radical gay parenting laws a blight on the State