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Dear Bigoted Couple Who Want To Divorce To Protest Gay Marriage...

Dear Bigoted Couple Who Want To Divorce To Protest Gay Marriage,

Nick, today you announced to the world  in a piece you wrote for Canberra’s City News that you and your wife Sarah would end your 10 year marriage if same-sex unions were legalised in Australia. As a protest. Because you believed allowing same-sex couples to marry would devalue your own special union.

You admit this may prove confusing for some people since you and Sarah have no desire to actually be unmarried and wish to remain living together until death do you part. You have two kids together and you say you want more.

Nick and Sarah Jenson on the cover of City News.

But Nick, I honestly think divorcing your wife is a terrific idea. You and Sarah should definitely get divorced to loudly protest all this disturbing…. love and monogamy. Why wait until same-sex marriage is legalised? You should divorce now. Like, today.

At first, your kids will be upset. They won’t understand why their parents – who love each other and them so much – aren’t married.

More on this story: A Canberra couple will divorce if same-sex marriage is legalised.

Because isn’t that what couples do when they love each other? Get married if they want to? Pledge their love and commitment to each other in front of their family and friends and, sometimes, their children?

But not to worry. I’m sure you and Sarah will sit your kids down and explain to them that Mummy and Daddy love each other very much and wish with all their hearts they could be married but sadly, cannot.

Funnily enough, that’s exactly what same-sex couples have to tell their children. The only difference Nick, is that same-sex couples don’t have the choice whether or not to be married. You and Sarah do.

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The happy couple. Image via Facebook.

Inevitably, your kids will find all of this confusing. And by being confused, they will have so much in common with the children of gay couples! Those kids also don’t understand why their parents aren’t married! Isn’t that a funny co-incidence!

You and Sarah can then explain to your kids that you’re so perversely disturbed by the idea of loving couples you’ll never meet having their relationship legally recognised and having the same legal rights and freedoms as straight people like you and Sarah, that you are prepared to sabotage your own union. Wilfully and for the sole purpose of public grandstanding.

Because…. homophobia.

“But what’s it got to do with our family if other people are allowed to marry the ones they love?” your kids will ask, still perplexed. At that point you can nod knowingly and explain to them – like you did in Canberra’s City News- that:

“By changing the definition of marriage, “marriage” will, in years to come, have an altogether different sense and purpose. It will not be about the mystery of difference in sexual unity, as children come from gendered dissimilarity. It will not be about building and securing communities into the future.”

This is patent bollocks, actually Nick. Marriage has always evolved. Just like humans. Thankfully. And what builds and secures our communities are families. What entitled arrogance to assume you and Sarah have a monopoly on the ‘best’ model for what a family should look like. By insisting that being a heterosexual couple is the Only Way To Be Married you insult every unmarried couple. And by insisting that parenting ‘best practice’ looks exclusively like a heterosexual married couple, you insult single parent and every widowed parent  – as well as every same-sex parent. But you already knew you were insulting them, right? That was the point, wasn’t it? It’s why you decided to make this ludicrous threat, yeah?

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Children don’t require parents with “gendered dissimilarity” to be happy. They require at least one parent who cares about them and is prepared to put their child’s welfare ahead of their own. Obviously, the more parents – the more people – who are heavily invested in the well-being of a child, the better the outcome for that child’s future. The genitalia of these parents, these people is patently irrelevant. Frankly, I’m a bit puzzled that you and your wife are so obsessed with genitals.

They rather happy, don’t they? Image via Facebook.

The thing is Nicky, you can’t have it both ways. Either marriage is a big deal – and helps bind families together – or it doesn’t. If it does, then the more children whose parents can legally marry, the more secure those children will be. Clearly you don’t really believe this to be a good thing or else you’re blind to your own hypocrisy. It’s obvious that you and your wife have deeply ingrained prejudices against gay and lesbian couples and are using this opportunity to try to camouflage your bigotry with morality.

Not going to work, my friend. You have exposed yourself for the small-minded toxic people that you are.

Seriously, just stop: ‘Stop telling me Christians don’t support gay marriage.’

Your claim that this push towards same-sex marriage will cause a reactionary stampede away from the state and towards churches is so fatuous as to be hilarious.  You say:

“What is significant is this issue will echo the growing shift from state education to private religious institutions. This shift is no doubt because the majority of Australians, who are people of faith, believe their children are better served there. If the federal government pursues a change to the definition of marriage it will further alienate and divide the community.”

Dude, are you on crack? How can love and monogamy between consenting adults “divide the community”?

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What divides us is bigotry and religious zealots like you and your wife. Homophobia divides us. Racism divides us. Fear divides us.

And how dare you suggest that “the majority of Australians, who are people of faith” believe their children are better served in private religious institutions. Would those people of faith be the same ones whose children were sexually assaulted by members of the clergy? Would they be the families of victims who have committed suicide after being sexually abused by priests? Would those ‘religious institutions’ be the same ones whose abhorrent abuse and in some cases torture of children over decades has led to lifetimes of indelible pain and trauma?

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You go on to describe marriage as being: “a sacred institution, ordained by God. It has always been understood to be that exclusive relationship where one man and one woman become “one flesh”.

Speak for yourself Nick. And check your calendar. It’s 2015 and the vast majority of people I know don’t “understand” any such thing. The majority of Australian couples are married by celebrants not God. And “one flesh”? Give me a break. Most of us believe marriage is a union of two individuals, not a toastie where you get mashed into one.

If that’s the definition you and your wife have for your marriage: Holy Toastie, then by all means knock yourselves out. Your marriage is none of my business. And my marriage – and the marriage of every other couple who is married or wishes to be – is none of yours.

Nick, can I respectfully suggest that instead of divorcing, you and your wife have some marital counselling? I think it would be really helpful for you both to explore why you’re so threatened by couples who love each other and what genitals they happen to have. If your marriage is so truly superior in the eyes of God or your church or your own twisted moral code, then you shouldn’t worry yourself so much with the lives and loves of others. Just be pious and smug and stop giving other church-goers a bad name. 

Oh, and next time a celebrity couple annuls their vows after a few weeks will you also threaten to divorce in protest at the erosion of the sanctity of marriage? Not if they’re heterosexual, right?

Which surely proves how messed up, bigoted and thoroughly unGodly your world views truly are.

More from Mamamia on the marriage equality debate:

A statement from the Mamamia Women’s Network about Marriage Equality.

18 arguments against gay marriage – and why they’re bollocks.

Tonight, we are one gigantic step closer to legalising gay marriage.

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