IMPACT OF UN TREATIES ON MEN & MARRIAGE

Babette Francis

1. In 1980 when Endeavour Forum opposed Australia's signing of the UN's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) we were criticised by some pro-family groups which should have known better. The 1984 federal Sex Discrimination Act which implemented CEDAW in Australia outlaws discrimination on the basis of marital status. This led directly to the McBain v. the State of Victoria decision in the Federal Court, July 2000, giving single women and lesbians the right to IVF treatment. This "right” to deliberately manufacture babies outside marriage (and with no involvement of the biological fathers in the rearing of such children) erodes the status of marriage as an institution.

2. As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision consensual homosexual sex conducted in private by adults is now equal to heterosexual sex and cannot be prosecuted under U.S. law. (See Lawrence v. Texas, Opinion No. 02-102, June 26, 2003). . The reasoning underlying the decision is so broad as to leave little legal basis, if any, on which to prohibit gay marriage and eventually homosexual adoption of children.

How did the Court get to this point from its stance in 1986 when the Court affirmed a State’s ability to prohibit sodomy? According to Justice Scalia, the majority [of the justices] has “largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda” advanced by law professors and other academicians. This agenda, as noted earlier, is much broader than being free to engage in homosexual sex. In addition to U.S. academicians, the majority opinion also looked to how other foreign governments have handled this agenda. The decision cited an amicus brief submitted to the Court by a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, which referred to precedents established by the European Union Court of Human Rights and United Nations documents as justification for the U.S. to legalize homosexual sex. She claimed that the U.S. would lose potential global allies if it did not conform to alleged world opinion on this issue.

This is one reason why Endeavour Forum Inc. has been fighting diligently at the United Nations to ensure that dangerous language is not included in UN documents, and other international documents, including wording which promotes homosexuality.

3. In September 2003 Senator Brian Grieg (Australian Democrats, WA) successfully moved in the Senate that the Australian Government is under an obligation as a signatory to the First Optional Protocol to the International covenant on civil and Political Rights .....to legislate for partnership recognition of same-sex couples under Commonwealth Law.

4. Although CEDAW is supposed to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sex, it allows for Affirmative Action, i.e. discrimination against men in employment and promotions. Norway’s Parliament is expected soon to pass what is called "groundbreaking" legislation that will force publicly traded companies to increase the number of women on their corporate boards to 40% by 2005, and impose severe penalties for noncompliance. The feminist sponsor of the bill, Laila Daavoey, said, "There will not be equality until you have incompetent women in the boardroom." (Editor's note: That is what she said.) New York Times, 14 July 2003.