Gay rights a critical first step in ending discrimination

IMAGINE being refused access to visit your dying lover in hospital because you were black or female. Or being denied the payout from your dead partner's pension, superannuation fund or workers' compensation scheme after a lifetime together because you had a disability. It may sound far-fetched, but for far too long similar injustices have been the reality for many in our community — merely on the grounds that they are gay.

Finally, after years of political quibbling and timidity, much of that is about to change. The Age applauds moves by the Rudd Government to honour its election pledge to end discrimination against gay couples in about 100 federal laws sooner rather than later. Among the myriad changes, gay parents would win legal protection against being sacked for taking time off work to care for their sick child, and gay partners would acquire legal spousal privilege in court. Gay couples would also be treated the same way as heterosexual partners in qualifying for more help to pay big medical and pharmaceutical bills.

For the past four years, after signalling that he would offer interdependent couples some recognition in areas such as superannuation, former prime minister John Howard dragged the chain on these reforms, deferring action repeatedly despite the valiant advocacy of Liberal MPs such as Warren Entsch. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson backs the concept of removing discrimination from the federal statute book, but then mars that principled stance by saying he wants to scrutinise the costs. Ultimately, however, he will assure the passage of the laws by delivering crucial Coalition support in the Senate. Even the most ardent social conservatives in the Federal Parliament have had trouble finding grounds to object. Witness Queensland Nationals senator Ron Boswell declaring: "I'm uneasy about it, but if it's just about equity, I'd probably go along with it."

But making these changes is the easy part of the gay rights debate. The much thornier challenge for our federal politicians lies in the next step: a push to grant legal recognition for gay relationships. Launching a fresh bid this week to revive the nation's first civil unions scheme for gay couples — the ACT scheme that was quashed by the Howard government in 2006 and again in 2007 — ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell challenged the principle behind expunging inequality from some laws but not others. "Removing discrimination cannot be done in a piecemeal manner — removing discrimination means removing discrimination full stop," he argued.

  Gay rights a critical first step in ending discrimination
The Age, Australia