Malcolm Turnbull promotes same-sex marriage - and civil unions

Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull openly supported the push for same-sex 'marriage' in a lecture last week. It's not surprising he was so explicit in his support, because it was the '2012 Michael Kirby lecture'. We already know that Michael Kirby, former High Court judge, supports same-sex 'marriage'.

In his speech Mr Turnbull gave his reasons for supporting same-sex 'marriage'. Read his speech - click here.

Toward the end of his speech, he noted that he didn't think there were the votes in parliament at the current time to get the proposed amendment to the Marriage Act passed to allow same-sex 'marriage'. So he called on parliament to support civil unions: "We should not miss the opportunity to legislate for civil unions for same sex couples in this parliament."

He has been reported as saying that civil unions are a 'bridge to marriage'. In other words, implement civil unions and you are one step along the way to marriage...

He observed that some would criticise this position, saying, "It is said by the “marriage or nothing” advocates that if the Parliament were to legislate for civil unions there would never be a move to marriage. Well, “never” is a word that is rarely applicable to anything in politics, but beyond that experience suggests this argument is simply not right. On the contrary it appears that most jurisdictions which have legislated for gay marriage have first provided for civil unions including the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Canada."

Andrew Boltcriticised the arguments he made - pointing out that a call for widening the Marriage Act to include homosexuals could also be used to justify widening it further - to include polygamy or multiple partners. Click here to read.
Mr Turnbull responded - click here.
And Andrew Bolt made another response - click here.

But what does Mr Turnbull mean by 'civil unions'?
He refers to the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway - in each of these cases they had 'Registered Partnerships', not 'civil unions'. The term 'Civil unions' is used by Mr Turnbull as an 'umbrella term' to describe any form of registration of same-sex relationships.
Even Australian Marriage Equality, the key homosexual lobby group for same-sex 'marriage', calls all of the Australian schemes 'civil unions' even when they are officially called 'Relationship Regiters' (as in Tas, Vic and NSW) and 'Civil Partnerships' in the ACT. Read their webpage.

All of these methods of registration endorse same-sex relationships and all undermine the arguments used to oppose the formal recognition of same-sex relationships - whether it be 'marriage', civil unions, civil partnerships, registered partnerships or relationship registers.