SAME-SEX BILL’S BOASTING RIGHTS

LIBERAL MPs such as Dean Smith should treat same-sex marriage — and voters — with more respect.

Instead, Smith yesterday admitted he was working on a sneaky plan to get parliament to vote for same-sex marriage.

He doesn’t want the Liberals to stick by their election promise to let the people decide in a plebiscite, now that it’s blocked in the Senate.

Of course, we knew Liberals were secretly plotting this, since frontbencher Christopher Pyne was taped boasting in a bar that samesex marriage would come “sooner than everyone thinks”.

Now Smith confirms it, saying he’s preparing a private members’ Bill that rogue Liberals could get through parliament with the support of Labor and Greens. This is about boasting rights. “The Bill is important because it will allow the Liberal Party to revisit the issue of marriage once and for all before the next election,” Smith says.

But this presumes Labor leader Bill Shorten would help. He’d prefer same-sex marriage to be the first historic change of a new Shorten government.

That’s why Labor has blocked the Liberals’ public vote, even though polls show the public would vote an overwhelming yes.

How pathetic for same-sex marriage to be just some political prize, to be achieved through cheap tricks and broken promises.

This goes to my big concern about many same-sex marriage activists. Is the marriage tradition safe in their hands?

Marriage is the business of us all because it helps keep parents together for the sake of their children. It is one of our most important civilising influences, and preserving this tradition is the business of serious people.

We must not trash it by treating it as a cheap prize for political insiders out for glory and playing voters like mugs.

What’s more, that won’t work. If same-sex marriage is imposed by politicians, rather than embraced by the people, we will not get the affirmation that best ends the argument and starts a new tradition.

Opponents of same-sex marriage will feel tricked. Supporters will never know whether they got the public embrace many say they need. Those in between will feel cynical.

Let the public decide. Let the argument be resolved in the most affirming way.

Let the supporters of same-sex marriage show they are morally serious — people who want to win not by conquering parliament but by conquering the public’s heart.