Data from Australia’s 2011 census have been released today and show 33,714 gay couples, 1,338 of whom are married.
The number of same-sex relationships is equivalent to 0.48 per cent of the total number of couples recorded in the survey and has risen from 25,600 in 2006.
For the first time, gay couples had the option of recording themselves as married in the census, though Australia does not legally recognise them as such at the federal level.
14 Comments
So ... less than half of one percent? Does this mean they're any less deserving of dignity and respect? I had no idea that equal rights were only for the majority.
It just means that their profound sexual disorientation does not entitle them to destroy marriage, Garrett.
You'll understand better this November.
@Garrett:@Austin&Jon: The gay lifestyle is immoral, unhealthy, and destructive. The Constitution nor the common law gives to the practice of perversity a cherished position of a human right. A recent comprehensive study by the University of Texas reveals the debilitating effects on children from gay parenting. The name of the study is New Family Structures Study. The outcomes of the study show the damage to children. See outcomes graph:http://americansfortruth.com/2012/06/15/washington-times-graphic-on-homosexual-parenting-study-reveals-risks-of-having-lesbian-mothers/.
If there is a gay gene, then the campaign for “gay marriage” is the promotion of genetic suicide, reducing the number of gays closer to zero.
In any event, everyone has the right to enter into private civil contracts. A tiny fraction of the population doesn’t have the right to de-gender the institution of marriage for the 99% without their consent. De-gendering marriage would be especially detrimental to women and children.
Does the richest 1% of the population have the right to abolish progressive taxation to preserve their sense of dignity?
@Craig -- You do realize that the study in question is not looking at same-sex parents, but is comparing married heterosexual parents to married different-gender, but homosexual parents, right? The study, if anything, shows the need for gay marriage so that homosexuals who wish to become married and start a family are not forced into pretending to be heterosexual, marrying someone of the opposite sex, having children, and then having their family fall apart due to their living a lie.
Your use of the study is either ignorant or deliberately dishonest.
@Garrett
Gays are a tiny fraction of the population, perhaps 1.7% overall. Gays who consider themselves to be "married" are a small fraction of that already tiny fraction.
The notion of uprooting and severing the deep connection between marriage and procreation, to be done at the risk of real harm to the rest of society and only to placate this fraction-of-a-fraction, is ludicrous. Why should we do it?
@Lefty - the number of gay couples jumped 25% since the last survey. At that rate, gay couples will over take straight in a few decades.
Or in fact is this survey not the whole story?
There is no real risk to 'rest of society' as this has been shown in country after country that has legalised ssm.
As someone else said above, one can,t really decide policy just on the notion of prevalence, that would be perverse.
What a bunch of BS to claim that in a few decades sodomite households will be greater in number than male/femal households.
But John...Isn't that the entire basis of the anti-SSM argument? "The destruction of civilization"? It would mean that the gays would have to totally take over the world and stop procreating for this to happen. That's the fear expressed by many religious leaders, including Brian and Maggie.
Oh poster #9, it was your idiot supporter in post #7 who made the claim.
Australian population 22.3 million
Children (15 and under) 4.2 million
Adults (15 and over) 18.1 million
Homosexual adults (5% of aduts) 0.9 million
Couples 33,714
Individuals (33,714) x 2 = 67,428
Percentage of adult homosexual population in homosexual twosomes?
Adult homosexual population 900,000
Individuals 67,428
Percentage in twosomes = 7%
About 93% of the adult homosexual population are NOT in homosexual twosomes.
By contrast, 78% of the nonhomosexual population are in twosomes.
Only a tiny percentage of the adult homosexual population pairs-up (in the homosexualized sense intended by the census) and a verytiny percentage of that tiny subgroup self-describes as same-sex "married".
SSM would be a ver inefficient vehicle for deliering government benefts to the adult homosexual population.
Jon, what is the lie you talk of in your previous comment. Please be specific.
The marriage law does not force people to marry. It does not force people to lie.
Perhaps you'd acknowledge that your rhetoric was excessive.
Garrett,
The bride-groom requirement does not obstruct equal treatment of individuals under the law.
You probably mean to demand a false equivalence between the marriage (the union of husband and wife) and a gaycentric subset of nonmarriage.
That would be favoritism of the gay identity group rather than equality of individuals.
Th individual who experiences same sex sexual attraction is not denied dignity and respect under the bride-goorm requirement.
How does the marriage of a man and a woman deny such a person's dignity or respect?It does not.
Marriage law is for marriage and not for some nonmarital alternative that happens to be limited by the lack of either a bride or a groom.
The SSM campaign routinely emphasizes gay identity politics as decisive. And that typically entails an emphasis on samesex sexual attraction, samesex sexual romance, and samesex sexual behavior.None of that serves respect human dignity. Quite the contrary.
The choice to form a nonmarital alternative relationship is a liberty exercise and not a right denied. Making bad choices is not forbidden by marriage law.
Recasting marriage is at issue here. The SSM side seeks to replace the marriage idea with a poor substitute idea. Renaming that lousy idea (the SSM idea) "marriage" by force of arbitrary law would be unjust and a blatant disregard for respect of human dignity. It would demote the core meaning of marriage down from its preferential status. It would drop the marriage idea to a barely tolerative status. Why?To elevate the gay identity group and to entrench the supremacy of gay identity politics over and above all other considerations.
That would be a deep harm to society.