The fight over the Civil Union Bill is as much about who we are as a nation as it is about who can hitch up with whom.

Are we a Christian nation or a pluralist state? Should law be based on morality or on rationality? Should the legislature be neutral or partial between competing value systems?

Some of the opposition to the bill has been venomous and furious. Civil Union supporters have been criticised for calling those opponents ‘homophobic’ and perhaps they were wrong to do so. Maybe it isn’t about fear of homos as much as fear of losing a privileged status.

Because on the face of it, why would it upset people that two men or two women who love each other can make a public commitment and be recognised in law? How does that diminish anyone?

It diminishes them only if their value is derived from being able to demonstrate superiority. If being privileged above others makes a relationship valuable, then it will suffer from the presence of anything closely equivalent.

But if its value is derived from the love that it embodies, and from the virtue of its form, then its value remains unaffected by the proximity of others, whether of greater or lesser beauty. In fact, such proximity provides an opportunity to proclaim its unique qualities.

The Civil Union Bill will not change marriage. It is not gay people who love each other that devalue marriage, but radio shows and reality TV offering a bride as a prize. Allowing couples to have a civil union rather than a marriage provides an opportunity for the churches to proclaim what it is that is significant and sacred about a marriage ceremony.

Do opponents of the bill secretly believe that heterosexual marriage is not attractive after all, and that the presence of alternatives will make it less desirable? Do they think that somehow good straight kids will start entering gay unions because the law now says they can? Do they think being gay is more interesting?

Or is it just that they see their dominance of our social and political forms slipping away? The increasing plurality of our society is scary for those who have always paddled in the mainstream. The diversity of choices, of lifestyles, is threatening to them.

I don’t mean this unkindly. I am a man who has lived on the outer edge of the river for most of my life. I have strong values, strong ideals, an unshakeable faith which I am forbidden by law to fully practise. It would be wrong to assert my faith by demanding that everyone else must practise it, although I consider that I am justified in demanding my own right to do so.

That is the proper relationship between faith and state. The state should be a protector, not persecutor, of religion. But it is not the state’s role to advantage one faith over another, or religion over any other philosophy.

The job of legislators is not to privilege any particular cultural practice, but to protect human rights, and cultural and ecological integrity. That does not include entrenching discrimination in the law.

The law should support committed long-term relationships because they promote health, social stability and happiness. There is no rational basis for excluding people from that because they are gay.

Even if it were true, as some assert, that gay relationships are less stable, why would we want to guarantee that by denying them the opportunity to formally and publically commit and have that commitment taken seriously by the law?

As it stands, the law says that a same-sex couple may have casual sex, but may not have their long-term relationship recognised. I do not understand why some people see maintaining that as a moral imperative.

But then I’ve never really understood why oppressing other people is seen as a Christian value by some.

The Bible does talk about homosexuality – it is a little unclear in places whether the problem is homosexuality per se, or promiscuity, but it certainly is condemned a few times.

I haven’t counted, but probably about as many times as usury – the practice of lending money at interest. Usury is a genuinely iniquitous practice and avoidance of usury is one of the unique feature of the Muslim banking system.

Consider the percentage of your income spent servicing interest on debt. Interest on your mortgage (or your landlord’s mortgage if you pay rent), on bank loans to the businesses where you shop, the shop’s lease, or student debt of the employees.

Homosexuality is of insignificant concern to the Biblical prophets and to the Christ’s message compared with economic injustice and oppression of the poor. It would be unfair to say that, among Christians, concern over the Civil Union Bill is inversely proportional to concern over social justice, but there seems to be a rough fit.

Christianity was debased when it became the state religion of Rome, and continues to debase itself when it tries to align its interests with those of the state. This is a pluralist society, with a democratic and secular parliament. It is important that we uphold that.

Should parliament pass the Civil Union Bill?

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