News Home Just In Australia World Business Sport Entertainment Weather | Opinion Blogs

Opinion Home Essays Emails Speeches Documents Contact

Chasing the freedom to rule our own lives

By Rodney Croome

Posted May 16, 2008 08:23:00
Updated May 16, 2008 09:35:00

LtoR Mildred Loving and her husband Richard P Loving

Mildred Loving: "I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry." (www.democraticunderground.com)

Freedom is rarely associated with marriage. Too many ill-considered and unhappy unions have seen to that.

But for those people denied the right to marry the person they love, marriage is synonymous with freedom. The association between the equality in marriage and freedom from second-class status is well understood by people of colour.

In 1958, in the midst of the struggle for black civil rights in America, Martin Luther King declared:

"When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom."

A black woman from Virginia, Mildred Loving, was so inspired by this idea that she and her husband Richard took state laws barring their interracial union all the way to the US Supreme Court and in 1967 succeeded in having them struck down.

Mildred Loving, who died two weeks ago aged 68, is known around the world as a champion of freedom to marry.

Sadly, what many Australians don't realise is that laws similar to those against which Mrs Loving fought, existed here for a century, and were central to the struggle for Aboriginal rights.

Beginning in Victoria in the 1860s and reaching their apogee in WA and Queensland in the 1930s, Aboriginal Protection Acts included provisions allowing state officials to determine who Aborigines could or couldn't marry.

These laws were used for different purposes at different times.

Queensland's policy was generally one of preventing black/white unions, US-style.

WA's evolved in the opposite direction, preventing "half-castes" from marrying other Aborigines in order to "breed out the colour".

But no matter what the racist purpose of these policies, the effect was the same: personal tragedy and political disenfranchisement.

The Sydney and Melbourne-based Aboriginal activists who emerged from the labour movement in the 1920s to fight for better wages and conditions for black workers were slow to pick up on the link between the freedom to marry and full citizenship.

Not so those directly disadvantaged by the laws, including the "half-caste" women of Broome, who declared in a petition in 1935:

"Sometimes we have the chance to marry a man of our own choice. We ask for our Freedom so that when the chance comes along we can rule our lives and make ourselves true and good citizens."

Thanks to voices like these, freedom to marry rose to the top of the Australian Aboriginal rights agenda, second only to the right to vote, and stayed there until the states repealed their Protection Acts, and a the national referendum of 1967 confirmed full Aboriginal citizenship.

Parallel

There's an obvious parallel between the historic struggle of blacks for marriage choice, and today's struggle by gays and lesbians for the same choice.

It's not simply that the former was told which race to marry, while the latter is told which sex.

It's not just that trend-setting places like California, the first in the US to allow different-race marriages, today became one of the first to allow same-sex marriages.

It's about freedom from prejudice and freedom to fully share the joys of family life.

Mildred Loving saw these links when, on the 40th anniversary of the court decision that bears her name, she declared:

"I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. I am proud that Richard's and my name are on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life."

But for me the link runs even deeper.

Think for a moment of all the other groups in society, along with blacks and gays, who at one time or another have been denied the right to marry the partner of their choice: women, young people, people from differing faiths, people with disabilities, servants, foreigners and convicts.

What they all have in common is that they have been regarded as too immature or irresponsible to make what is arguably the most important decision any individual can ever make, the choice of a life-long partner.

Instead they were told that their hearts were untrustworthy and they should marry as society dictates, or not at all.

In the same vein, the gradual acceptance that members of these groups are fully adult, fully citizens and fully human, has been accompanied by an acceptance of their right to marry whomever they wished.

It is this acceptance of gay and lesbian Australians as fully equal members of the Australian nation and the human family which lies behind my support for equal marriage.

My ardent hope is for the day when, like Mildred Loving and the half-caste women of Broome, we too will be free to rule our own lives.

Rodney Croome is a spokesperson for the Australian Coalition for Equality.

Tags: community-and-society, marriage, gays-and-lesbians, race-relations, family, sexuality, australia, united-states

Search for news

Comments (98)

Comments for this story are closed. No new comments can be added. If you would like to have your say on this issue, you can do so via the Emails section of our Opinion pages.

Ford:

16 May 2008 8:49:48am

Meh, marriage is dead...long live living in sin!!
The laws certainly aren't going to change under PM Howard II and the current ALP, and I can't see the Coalition having a change of heart...if they even have one.

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Pauline:

16 May 2008 9:23:51am

Pity then about California's anti Affirmayive-Action proposition 209 which overturned some of the Civil rights gains of the 1960s on education and employment on the basis of race and gender.This proposition was driven by right-wing conservatives fighting against the implementation of desegregation, of which the miscegenation laws are one aspect.

Why does California receive praise for this decision on equality in marriage, but no condemnation for its part in undermining equality in employment and education?

Agree (0) Alert moderator
amme:

16 May 2008 9:27:09am

Mildred Loving's case bought freedom to choose to California, and i thank her for taking up the battle for equal rights, she most certainly fought for what she believed in and this opened the door for this most recent judgement by the Supreme Court.

My hope is that this decision will have a flow on effect throughout the world and Australia will finally realise that it should not discriminate against same sex unions.

I do not expect to ever marry a same sex partner but i should have the right to do this if i so choose. No one has the right to dictate to others who they should or should not love or decide that two people who love each other should not be permitted to publicly declare their love through marriage.

Ford...marriage is not dead, lots of people still wish and choose to do this, i hope you are wrong and that laws do change so that NO part of the the Australian polulation are discriminated against in relation to their right to marry regardless of their race colour or sexual preference.

Agree (0) Alert moderator
heidim:

16 May 2008 9:30:50am

It goes a lot deeper than that Ford, the basic right to marry who you choose reflects society's acceptance of the relationship. I don't believe that anyone else should have the right to dictate to me who I can or cannot share my life with (as long as we are both consenting adults). More and more research is showing that we don't choose our sexual orientation - it is an intrinsic part of our makeup - you didn't choose to be heterosexual, I didn't choose to be homosexual - but I did choose not to hide in the closet. Hence, for us, falling in love and wanting to share our lives with a member of the same sex is as normal as you falling for a member of the opposite - why should this be considered wrong and unacceptable?

Not being able to marry the woman of my dreams denies me many of the privilages that my heterosexual sister takes for granted - even down to basic things such as if I had a serious accident, my partner isn't regarded legally as my next of kin and can't make decisions about my care - my 65 year old brain injured father CAN (I have a enduring power of attorney to counteract this). If I died without a will (which won't happen as I'm very savy with the law BECAUSE of my orientation), then my partner won't be considered for guardianship of my children as they are biologically not hers and she CAN"T adopt, and my parents and siblings would get my estate even though we jointly built it.

Are you starting to see the ramifications here yet? It's not just about "I do". I love my partner with all my heart and I hope to be with her all my life (and may it be long), but until the laws change, we will always be considered second class.

I am currently perplexed by Labour's stance - they say that they want our community to enjoy the same privliages as our heterosexual brothers and sisters, yet not be allowed to marry or adopt children - this is unworkable and hypercritical. I hope that it will change over the course of this government.

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Bertrand:

16 May 2008 9:56:53am

Once again we have someone who has done a masters in politics thinking that absolutely everything in life revolves around the state.

Marriage is a religous institution, and when the state interferes, this is bad. Interacial marriage has been officially blessed by the big churches for centuries. Obviously there are racist local branches who ignore that, and certainly society in general would heavily discourage it, but for the most part, the Churches official stance on interacial marriage in the 1930's was for freedom.

The author here is saying that the state interfering in marriage in the 1930's is bad. Now he is saying that the state should interfere in marriage now. What right does the state have to specify a churches policy on a religous issue?

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Too_right:

16 May 2008 10:00:28am

Lets hope that both our politicians and the public at large come to realise that sexual orientation is a poor reason for denying people the opportunity to marry, and that they realise it soon!

Agree (0) Alert moderator
James:

16 May 2008 10:07:09am

Currently if a marriage breaks down because for example the woman is unfaithful, she can take the kids, 75%of the home and then claim child support from her X. Then she mooches off her new lover as well and claims child allowance from the Government.

Is it any wonder men try to dodge this bullet?

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Rob:

16 May 2008 10:58:09am

I am sure that many will write (or may already have written by the time this is posted) that the tradition of marriage and history dictate that marriage should be only between one man and one woman. However, history is not something with which one should agree or disagree, rather it is a record of countless people pursuing their own ends, interacting with one another and their environments through time (occasionally they make breakthroughs, producing new things; theres no reason for sentient beings to be stuck on precedent). I agree with history is really a meaningless statement, rather like saying I agree with time or I agree with the way my father and grandfather and ancestors before them though about things.

That said, history is replete with precedents for homosexual marriage. For example, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (John Boswell, University of Chicago Press, 1980) documents legally recognised homosexual marriage in ancient Rome extending into the Christian period, and Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (John Boswell, Villard Books, 1994) discusses Church-blessed same-sex unions and even an ancient Christian same-sex nuptial liturgy.

Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (Gary Leupp, University of California Press, 1995) describes the brotherhood-bonds between samurai males, involving written contracts and sometimes severe punishments for infidelity, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Literature on the Azande of the southern Sudan, details where for centuries warriors bonded, in all legitimacy, with boy-wives. Marjorie Topleys study of lesbian marriages in Guangdong, China into the early twentieth century and Yale law professor William Eskridges The Case for Same-Sex Marriage (1996) and other of his works, are all replete with many historical examples.

A study of world history will really tell you that pretty much any kind of sexual behavious can become institutionalised somewhere, sometime. Polygamy remains normal and legal in many nations, as it was among Americas Mormon forebears in Utah. In Tibet, polyandry has a long history, and modern Chinese law seems powerless to prevent marriages between one woman and two or three men.

Over the past 3,000 odd years there has, in fact, been no global marriage norm. In some societies a man and a woman, of their own free will, formed a relationship, decided to forge a life-long commitment, got the necessary permissions and ceremonial legitimacy, started having sex after that, and maintained a monogamous union thereafter until one died. Thats been very unusual though.

Arranged marriages involving varying degree of input by the couple (usually less by the female) have been more the norm.

Agree (2) Alert moderator
David Keig:

16 May 2008 11:33:42am

A few people have made the point that 'marriage is a religious institution'.

It is not and has not been for many years since a civil marriages were recognised.

The State has no right or, indeed, responsibility to enter into the private lives of individuals and the choices that they make within the law.

For same sex marriages to be treated any differently from other marriages or unions is rank hypocrisy and smacks of the utter nonsense of the dreaded 'religious right'.

Shame on all you narrow minded, short sighted, sanctimonious bigots who even fight against women becoming priests and ministers!

i somehow know where Jesus would be in this debate.

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Peter:

16 May 2008 12:00:31pm

Whatever homosexuals want to do in the privacy of their own homes is none of my business

This country has more important problems to solve without wasting resources on this kind of thing

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Bryce:

16 May 2008 12:20:19pm

Why not make a compromise? It is obvious that the particular word of marriage does offend some people, why not call it something else - like the civil union?

Look at all the celebrities who have 2, 3 and even 4 marriages - yet some people in our society are prevented from having even one.

Agree (0) Alert moderator
angela :

16 May 2008 3:33:07pm

There was a time when I though Rodney Groomes' marriage campaign a pointless irrelevancy on the path to improving human rights for lesbians and gays, and as a feminist, hardly a cheerleader for partiarchial matrimony.

I now realise it is in fact a powerful tool to move the debate about the validity of our relationships. I have spoken with many conservative heterosexuals who place considerable store on the institution of marriage (d'oh) and I realise that they aren't really couching their objections in religious terms - but societal acceptance. This is something my conservative G&L friends failed to get across to me. As hard as I find it to believe - the mere act of government sanction will force rightwingers to respect a married couple evenif they are ( horrors) same sex!!
That's why I am now an enthusiastic same sex marriage suppporter - not that I actually will get married - I have no urge for respectability!

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Beren:

16 May 2008 3:43:31pm

A well written and poignant article that draws very real parallels. Ironically in the past it was the same brand of socia-religious attitudes to race that are being touted in todays arguments against freedom and equality for same-sex couples.

Agree (0) Alert moderator
alan:

16 May 2008 5:46:27pm

Marriage by any definition is a pseudo christian ethic and as such is fast becoming irrelevant in today's society.

To all of those Anglo Saxon or roman catholic traditionalists get with the times marriage is your concept of what is right and real. To the new aged christians who attend hillsong or any other new aged christian ethos base church get a life, god and his son is just another set of rules that enable you to be controlled. A great example of what you are contributing to is Scientology. It is about the rich and famous. Every day punters are not welcome because you are unable to contribute the level of wealth the require.

The issues for all of us are about living in a world where many survive unnessessarily and too many of you place your faith in religion and right wing politics to make your world OK!

Agree (0) Alert moderator
Gen Y:

16 May 2008 7:54:26pm

Hay whats wrong with just calling it a civil union; giving same sex couples all the same legal rights that men & women get through marriage. I dont think its right that people that love each other and build lifes together should have no rights when for example their partner dies (hopefully later in life) they have no say because in the eyes of the law their next of kin have legal power over their assets. But i personally dont think it should be clasified as marriage, that to me can only be between a man and a woman. Whats the issue here, legal rights or social acceptance? If its about legal rights then no one should complain at calling it a civil union.

Agree (0) Alert moderator

Opinion

Chasing the freedom to rule our own lives

Parallel

Search for news

Comments (98)

Ford:

Pauline:

Taro Munn:

Ford:

taro mnunn:

amme:

heidim:

Ford:

David:

Ford:

Beren:

david:

Karlis:

Charis:

Ford:

Greg h:

Ford:

Vincent:

Daniel McCusker:

loggy:

Hoff:

Ford:

Josh:

Hoff:

Danny:

Vincent:

Ford:

david:

Break:

Grommo:

lake57:

amme:

lake57:

amme:

Steve M:

Daniel McCusker:

Pen:

Bertrand:

Ford:

Peregrine:

Ford:

Matt:

JayR:

Karlis:

Brad:

Stop_the_madness:

Vincent:

genY:

Hamish:

PaulB:

Too_right:

JayR:

Ford:

Jake:

James:

amme:

Rob:

Rob:

CJW:

Ford:

CJW:

Rob:

Simon:

David Keig:

JayR:

Peter:

Ford:

Karlis:

amme:

Bryce:

JayR:

Ford:

angela :

Beren:

alan: