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The subversive marriage of Janet Rice and Penny Whetton
The following article about Greens senator Janet Rice and her wife Penny Whetton first appeared on the ABC news attributed to Eliad Clure and more recently reworked by Stephanie Peatling in the SMH.
It is good to see the discussion about Same-sex marriage embracing the unusual situation that many who are married to someone identifying as transgender find themselves in. Penny Whetton and Janet Rice are one of the few(?) same-sex couples in Australia in a legally binding marriage. Penny has changed the gender marker on all documents except for her birth certificate. To change her birth certificate she would have to be single.
I thought the comments by Janet Rice on what it meant to their relationship when Penny transitioned were valuable.
Quote:“We went from being a stock standard, normal married couple to knowing society doesn’t trust our relationship.”Quote:“There’s knowing the bigotry is still out there and having to censor yourself. You never think about holding hands when you’re a heterosexual couple. You realise there’s still homophobia, transphobia, in the community. When you’re a heterosexual couple people never judge your relationshipQuote:“We used to kiss in public. But over the last 13 years we have self-censored ourselves. We generally don’t hold hands in public. -
1 Reply
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I find both these articles misconceived.
Under Howard’s amendments to the marriage act a marriage can only be between a man and a women. After this became law many same sex “marriages” became illegal in Australia or put another way would not be recognised as a marriage under Australian law. Many marriages couples where affected by this law particularly same sex couples who had married overseas. One reason Howard gave for amending the marriage act was the Family Court ruling that a Transwomen and a women could be legally married. Howard challenged the single judges ruling to the full Family court who upheld the single judges ruling. Rather then take this matter to the High Court where learned legal opinion was that Howard might lose, Howard chose to change the Marriage act instead.
The law maybe ridiculous and even an ass (as in donkey) but under Australian law Janet Rice and Penny Whetton are married as man and wife, man and a women and that is why Penny Whetton chooses to retain a birth certificate that identifies her as male.
Both articles conflate what a marriage can be and what is a legal marriage rather then shed light on the act of absolute bastardy and discrimination that Howard perpetrated on the Australian people.
Yes I am angry about this because when the original Marriage Act was past the Country Party sort to amend the legislation so that marriage was between a man and a women for life. Below is part of Senator Gorton’s speech about why marriage should not be defined in the Marriage Act.
“I do not think that the insertion of the definition in the bill is quite such a simple or easy matter as it might perhaps appear to be at first sight. While I agree that the fact that something has not been done before is no valid reason for not doing it now, I point out that it is often the case that there are valid reasons why things have not been done before. I am inclined to think that the reason why marriage has not been defined previously in legislation of this kind is because it is rather difficult to do so. Marriage, of course, can mean a number of things. For instance, it can mean a religious ceremony;, it can mean a civil ceremony; and it can mean, a form of living together. There are several meanings covered by the word “ marriage “, which are quite different one from the other.”
How far backward we have gone. But will further Turnbull amendment to the marriage act improve things if it also enshrines religious rights that enables people to use religion to discriminate?
