It is March 2028 and, I think, time to review ten years since marriage equality was voted into law in Australia. One thing that has become clear is that in Australia, unlike in any of the other nations of the world that allowed it, the consequences of marriage equality on its society have been ‘interesting’. This is on top of the fact that Australia lagged behind the other countries.

Australian society has changed radically. Whereas self-identified gay and lesbian couples in 2018 made up about 12% of the population, non-heterosexual marriages now, only ten years later, make up around 42% of all nuptials. Australia has been turning inexorably homosexual.
There is now a concerted campaign on the part of the government, urging fertile heterosexual couples to produce ‘extra’ children who can then be adopted by lesbian and gay couples. Part of this campaign also urges male married couples to make their semen available to female married couples, whether directly or for IVF. The birth-rate has already dropped to 1.1 child per fertile woman.
There have been other consequences of the law changing in 2018.
In 2021 the law against bestiality was repealed. It is legal for humans to have sex with animals. This was predicted in 2017 by the Christian lobby and they were right.
From the early 2020s, as a consequence of changing community attitudes to gender and gender differences, people began to shun fashions in clothing that emphasised differences between men and women. As part of this, and to engender greater tolerance of ‘the other’, most schools now mandate that all students wear a uniform consisting of a shapeless smock. The students are also made to shave their heads. This was also predicted in 2017 by the Christian lobby. They were also correct about predicting changes to school curricula: students from year five up are given role plays to have them be familiar and comfortable with homosexuality, transsexuality and bestiality. This grew out of a 2016 program called ‘Safe Schools’, which was then designed to deal with bullying coming out of homophobia.
Last year, a member of the government tabled a proposed law to legalise group marriages. This, if passed, would mean extending marriage from couples to groups of up to five individuals, of mixed gender or all of one gender. As in 2017, the ultra-conservatives in the parliament are insisting that a postal plebiscite be held to test the voters’ comfort or discomfort with this. Predictably, the Christian lobby has again started to urge a ‘no’ vote, pointing to the “terrible consequences” of the change to the definition of marriage in 2018. What is so terrible about the societal changes that we have experienced in the last decade? The lobby is saying that this latest suggested change would lead to increased child abuse, forgetting that child abuse is still rife in religious and other institutions, especially at the hands of unmarried, ‘celibate’ clergy.
The ‘no’ campaign claims that this proposed law will lead to a complete collapse of morality and that allowing group marriage will clog the courts with complicated divorce proceedings. Some people even point to environmental disasters and climate change as the result of the ‘moral turpitude’ arising from the 2018 law change.
Those arguing against a change in the law are using the same smoke and mirror tactics as they did ten years ago. What they say cannot be argued against, logically or otherwise, because, like smoke or a phantom seen only in a mirror, their arguments will waft into a different form or disappear from view, only to reappear when you’re not looking. Those in parliament who could bring in this logical change to the law with a stroke of the pen are frightened of the far-right, regressive, scripture-quoting conservatives who fear a total collapse of … everything. Instead of showing some intestinal fortitude, those who should be exercising the role of a functional government are looking more like a reluctentment.
The slippery slope we were warned about in 2017 turned out to be more like a benign and level playing field. Why would it be any different now? I do admit that climate change has become worse, but it is not necessarily the result of the 2018 law allowing same-gender couples to marry. It may, as scientists suggest, have something to do with the pollution we seem not to have been able to abate.
With this new proposed group marriage law, I am concerned that no other country has yet gone this far. It would be safer if, as in 2018, Australia were to stick to lagging some distance behind other countries.
© 2017 Daan Spijer

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