Couple vows to get divorced if gay marriage is allowed
A Canberra couple has claimed they will get divorced if gay people are ever allowed to get married in Australia.
In a piece written for Canberra City News, Nick Jensen writes that he and his wife Sarah would not wish to be associated with any new definition of marriage.
“My wife and I just celebrated our 10-year anniversary. But later this year, we may be getting a divorce,” he writes.
“The decision to divorce is not one we’ve taken lightly. And certainly, it’s not one that many will readily understand. And that’s because it’s not a traditional divorce.”
While the couple will continue to live together and call each other husband and wife, they will legally end their marriage because they believe “marriage is not a human invention,” but a “fundamental order of creation.”
“Marriage is the union of a man and a woman before a community in the sight of God. And the marriage of any couple is important to God regardless of whether that couple recognises God’s involvement or authority in it,” he writes.
He adds the pair would refuse to recognise the government’s regulation of marriage if its definition includes same sex couples.
"When we signed that official-looking marriage certificate 10 years ago at Tuggeranong Baptist Church, we understood that the state was endorsing marriage, as currently defined, as the fundamental social institution – with all that this implied."
Jensen writes that if federal parliament votes to change the “timeless and organic” definition of marriage, it will have moved against the fundamental and foundational building block of Australian society and human culture.
“This is why we are willing to divorce. By changing the definition of marriage, ‘marriage’ will, in years to come, have an altogether different sense and purpose.”
He writes that changing the definition of marriage would further alienate and divide the community.
Mr Jensen who is referred to in the article as director of the Lachlan Macquarie Institute and has previously been employed by the Australian Christian Lobby, says he knows the couple are not alone in their decision.
Readers of the independent publication were outraged by the magazine’s decision to publish the controversial piece.
“The main article is a joke,” Matt Webster wrote on Facebook. “How is marriage solely for religious people? If they're such devout Christians, the sin of divorce would not be an option.”
“It is one thing to have an opinion but it's another to publish bigotry like homophobia, racism, sexism and all the other bigotry out there as being an acceptable form of opinion piece,” Michael Write added.
The magazine’s editor, Ian Meikle, has defended his decision to publish the story and has rejected suggestions it was supporting a “homophobic” view.
“The article does not reflect the opinion of the paper. We published arguments and I decided it was a serious enough argument to genuinely warrant some attention,” he told he told News Corp.
“It’s an unusual love story, and what would life be if people didn’t have different ways of life.”
Morning news break – June 11
