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Australian PM Howard Says Government Will Overturn Same-Sex Union Law

By Gudrun Schultz

CANBERRA, Australia, March 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Australia’s federal government said yesterday it would overturn proposed legislation granting equivalent marriage rights to gay civil unions, if the capital territory brings it into law.

“There is a special place in Australian society for the institution of marriage, as historically understood, and we do not intend to allow that to be in any way undermined,” said Prime Minister John Howard.

The government of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) became the first in the country to introduce legislation for same-sex civil unions last week. The law would grant homosexual couples equivalent legal rights to married couples, without using the word ‘marriage.’

Since the legislation would only be valid in the ACT, it would not affect national laws regarding issues such as taxes and health care. Regardless, the federal government says the law is not acceptable under the 2004 Federal Marriage Act that formally defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

“If they seek to portray civil unions as a marriage, in our view, that is quite inappropriate. It is quite misleading, it suggests to people who might be interested in civil union that what they have is a marriage, when in fact it is not,” Attorney General Philip Ruddock told reporters.

“For a territory to say ‘well that’s fine for the Commonwealth Parliament to have resolved in that way, we’re still going to assert that a civil union is a marriage in all but title…’ let me make it very clear, that will not satisfy the commonwealth and we would include the introduction of legislation to prevent that from occurring,” he said.

The federal government has constitutional control over the nation’s two territories and can overturn territory laws. Mr. Ruddock said the bill would be overturned unless it is changed to provide only a domestic partner registry with limited benefits.

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

First Australian Territory to Grant All Marriage Rights to Same-Sex Unions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06032805.html

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