(This is a copy of our Submission on the above topic. It has been slightly modified: spelling errors corrected, some formatting applied; and a few words for clarity added. This said, the paper is substantially unchanged.)
A Submission to the:
The Secretariat
Adoption by Same Sex Couples Review
Department of Premier and Cabinet
1 Treasury Place
Melbourne VIC 3002
By:
Murray McLeod-Boyle of Reformation Ministries;
PO Box 1316, Wangaratta, Victoria 3676.
Phone: 0357270502; 0427797229.
Email: Reform@bigpond.com
On the Topic of:
A review of the Adoption Act 1984 to permit adoption of children by homosexuals under Victorian law.
Summary:
It is our contention that the proposed review is fatally flawed, being a case of “how” not “ought”. In other words, this review seeks to implement an ethical wrong (how), rather than ask the question as to whether or not this course should be taken (ought).
In taking this course, the Government has attacked the rule of law and has potentially opened the people of this State to a great tyranny by making the law a handmaiden of any political agenda.
Moreover, this review is impossible as its goal would destroy every tenet and presupposition upon which the current Adoption Act 1984 is founded. The current Act is undoubtedly Christian, heterosexual, and marital in its presuppositions and standards. Equally, the current Act insists that children must be prospered through the adoption process. At present, the evidence suggests that children raised in a homosexual environment suffer detriment.
Therefore, to continue with this review is to submit to the implementation of tyranny through the abuse of law as it becomes the servant of and instrument by which political agendas are implemented and contrary voices silenced.
1. The Right and Obligation of Rule:
I would like to begin by quoting the introductory words from another Submission made by us:
In commenting on this proposed [review of] legislation, I would like to start, not with its content, but the basis on which the Government thinks it has the right to impose these measures on its citizens.
It has become popular in the modern world to view the political sphere as an evolutionary marvel that has made it to the top of the “food chain”, so to speak, with an obvious right to rule as it sees fit. This juggernaut proceeds to proclaim autonomy in regard to its origin, power, legislative abilities, and accountabilities. It speaks of democracy, but believes in autocracy. It speaks of transparency, but operates in the opaque. It is often heard to speak of accountability. Yet, on review of its actions, we must ask, “Accountable to what or to Whom?”
It is time that the Governments and legislators of this nation were called back to reality. It is for this reason that our submission begins here.
Governments must understand that they are not an evolutionary marvel that has developed along with man as he crawled from the primordial soup. Government is, as with man, a creation of God and is therefore required to act in obedience to God for His glory.
Romans chapter 13 opens with these humbling and significant words:
Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.[1]
The Apostle Paul then goes on to describe governments as a “minister of God” (v 4) and as “servants of God” (v 6). The clear implication of this teaching is that ‘governments’, no matter what title they be given, belong to God and are to exercise their derived authority for God’s glory and for His purposes.
As potent as these texts are in outlining the source of the government’s authority and its obligation to God, Paul has another gem in this same passage. In verses three and four, he addresses the governed, saying:
For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.
This passage is vitally important for its treatment of how citizenry should look upon their rulers. Note well, that those who ‘do good’ should have no fear of the authorities. Only those who practice evil have any reason for concern.
These points are raised precisely because our governments systematically ignore both sets of instruction!
As a consequence of the Government ‘throwing off’ its ordained role as an instrument of God and His righteousness, the people fear. Importantly, good people fear! They are fearful because of legislation like that proposed and already enacted. Legislation that pays no heed to God and His law and which is therefore governed by the ephemeral, transient, and finite; instead of the Eternal and Infinite. The consequence of this is that we are subjected to tyrannical laws that are based in the utopian ideals of the brotherhood of man, rather than upon the revelation of Almighty God.[2]
It is also most evident that legislators are no longer aware of the fact that law coalesces with morality. Thus, the ‘rule of law’, based in God’s revealed law, was designed to prevent tyranny.[3] However, we now see that the law is not used as a means by which we uphold God’s Moral Law, but, rather, it has become a big stick in the hands of tyrants.
2. Law for the sake of a Political Agenda:
That the Government no longer operates under God and has thereby lost all true sense of and the ability to rightly distinguish “good” from “evil” is clearly seen in the preamble, which states:
The scope of the review will be limited to determining the technical legislative changes required to permit adoption by same-sex couples. The review will be to establish the best ways to legislate for adoption equality – not whether it should occur or not.[4]
This is to say that morality is of no interest. We do not wish to know whether this move is legal, that is, in accordance with God’s Law, we simply want to know how to implement our agenda.
To the Reviewer, especially if he be one who respects the rule of law, we would ask you to think deeply about this process, for it has the potential to destroy our society. Law should equate with morality and morality equates to freedom. However, when law is divorced from morality it becomes a means to subjugation. In the situation before us, we have changes in law and morality being written into secondary legislation to bring about a major paradigm shift in this country, namely, homosexual union or ‘gay marriage’.
Hence, this review is nothing more than an underhanded attempt to force the people of Victoria to submit to the militant homosexual agenda, buoyed by our Humanist government. It is an attempt to remove all the obstacles at a secondary level so that a claim can be made that so-called “Equality” has been achieved in all but the primary level. Then, naturally, there will be a demand for a complete unity between the secondary and the primary, but this in reverse order.[5]
Thus, if the Reviewer contends to have integrity, we would urge him to abandon this review as something that is obscene to anyone with a basic concept of law and morality. If the principle on which this review is founded continues to hold sway, what will become of law and justice? The rule of law will diminish and our society will regress to the instability created by the rule of the fickle or the rule of the ephemeral. This chaotic rule is condemned in Scripture with these words: “In those days there was no king [one who ruled under God] in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”[6] The days to which this passage refers were days of instability, bloodshed, mayhem, and disunity—days similar to our own, but much worse!
If reviews, like this present one, are allowed to proceed on such an erroneous premise and law continues to be made the handmaiden of capricious political agendas, then our future is bleak. All will suffer as they fall victim to this unrestrained tyranny.
3. Marriage between a Man and a Woman is the Basis for Adoption:
It is possible that the Reviewer may be bemused by some of these comments. So, please, let us explain our position more concretely.
The Marriage Act 1961 is the primary piece of legislation that governs marriage in this country. The primary legislation then becomes the bedrock on which the secondary legislations, such as Victoria’s Adoption Act 1984, rest.
The Marriage Act 1961 specifically clarifies two issues relevant to this discussion. First, marriage is clearly defined in Section 5 as, “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”[7] Secondly, Section 88EA rules out certain types of unions, particularly those solemnised in foreign countries, as not being marriages, stating, “Certain unions are not marriages, A union solemnised … between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia.”[8]
These pieces of information are of importance for the current discussion, with their definition of and exclusions to marriage, for these same elements are picked up in the Adoption Act 1984.
As soon as the Adoption Act 1984 turns its attention to who may apply to adopt (Section 10A) and who would be a favourable person to adopt (Section 11), we are confronted with marriage between a man and a woman.
ADOPTION ACT 1984 – SECT 10A Application for adoption order
An application for an adoption order under sections 11 and 12 may be made—
(a) in the case of a man and a woman who are married or living in a relationship referred to in section 11(1), if the man and woman have been married to each other or living in that relationship with each other for not less than 2 years.[9]
The section does refer to de facto relationships—wrongly we might add—nonetheless, these de facto relationships are clearly viewed, in context, as heterosexual relationships.
Similarly, Section 11reinforces these criteria, stating,
Persons in whose favour adoption orders may be made
(1) An adoption order may be made in favour of a man and a woman—
(a) who are married to each other and have been so married for not less than two years; or
(b) whose relationship is recognized as a traditional marriage by an Aboriginal community or an Aboriginal group to which they belong and has been so recognized for not less than two years; or
(c) who are living in a de facto relationship and have been so living for not less than 2 years; or
(d) who have been living with each other in any combination of the relationships referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c) and have been so living for not less than 2 years—
before the date on which the order is made.[10]
Armed with this information, it is simply impossible to apply this current legislation to homosexuals; and this not because homosexuals are simply not mentioned, but because the whole foundation of the Adoption Act 1984, its major presupposition, if you will, runs contrary to homosexuality in that it asserts that children rightly belong to a man and a woman who are bound by marriage. In other words, the Adoption Act 1984 is founded upon the Biblical view of marriage and family. Built into this understanding is the fact that children are not to be viewed simply as a trophy or status symbol, something to be applied for as that which will legitimise a relationship, but rather they are to be seen as a covenant blessing from God by which the work of God’s dominion, bringing His rule and blessing to fruition, is carried on throughout the whole earth.
Therefore, based on the definitions, exclusions, and presuppositions of the Marriage Act 1961 and the Adoption Act 1984, it is simply impossible to see this legislation as being legitimately applied to homosexuals, reworked to apply to homosexuals, or forced, like a contortionist into a box, to apply to homosexuals.[11]
Hence, we once more draw attention to and highlight the absolute “hatchet job” that is required to mutilate this legislation in order to bring homosexuals within its purview. To pursue the current review is: to blatantly attack God’s created order; to attack marriage as only applicable to heterosexuals; to demean the concept of marriage; to imply that children are other than the “fruit of the womb”; to destroy language;[12] and, as stated, to make law the manipulative tool of tyrants, thus destroying the rule of law.
We should also note that Section 15:1(a) excludes homosexuals as they do not meet the stated criteria. Similarly, Section 15:1 (b) allows only for considerations on “Religion, Race, and Ethnicity”. It does not introduce a criterion on sexuality, and nor should it, for this would truly be the opening of Pandora’s Box!
From these sections, we can clearly see that the Adoption Act 1984 is fundamentally heterosexual in its understanding of Man. Although it departs from God’s ordinance in the recognition of de facto relationships, it nonetheless upholds the Biblical principle of marriage and the covenant bond between a man and a woman that is the foundation for family and parenting.
4. Homosexuals choose to be Childless:
In discussions of this nature it is common for certain facts to be overlooked for convenience sake. In this current issue, two glaring facts, one from each side of the debate, are conveniently ignored. First, the Bible recounts:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
From the Christians perspective, Man was made in God’s image and given a mandate to be fruitful and multiply. Man could fulfill this command, as male and female, precisely because God had equipped each gender with everything necessary for the task. This command means that family is not only good and desirable, but completely necessary for Man to fulfill his function as God created him.
Second, the homosexual chooses for himself a form of sexuality that does not enable reproduction. Even viewed from an Evolutionary perspective, homosexuality is suicide, speaking from a familial, societal, and cultural point of view. The question that must then be asked is, “Why should society provide the means, through adoption, IVF, surrogacy, or any other alternative, for the homosexual to possess children when the homosexual chooses a lifestyle that ipso facto means that children cannot be naturally created?”
In essence, the homosexual, actively rebelling against God, chooses a lifestyle of infertility, but then demands that society provide for him all the blessings that rightly come only through obedience to God’s command.[13]
This point is by no means irrelevant to this conversation. Section 53A of the Adoption Act 1984 states,
General effect of adoption orders
(1) Subject to this Act and to the provisions of any other Act that expressly distinguishes in any way between adopted children and children other than adopted children, upon the making of an adoption order—
(a) the adopted child shall be treated in law as a child of the adoptive parent or adoptive parents, and the adoptive parent or adoptive parents shall be treated in law as the parent or parents of the child, as if the child had been born—
(i) to the adoptive parent; or
(ii) to the adoptive parents in lawful wedlock.
Again, it is clear that the framers of the Adoption Act 1984 had a Christian view of marriage and family and not a Humanistic / homosexual view. Once more, the standard set by the Act is the natural process that takes place as the result of a union between a man and a woman – a child is born to them. Moreover, the Act specifically states, in regard to “parents”, that they be or be viewed as being in “lawful wedlock”. Here, then, are more criteria that the homosexual simply cannot meet. Homosexuality is barrenness. It is a choice against children and family. Lastly, it is illegal.
This last point deserves at least a paragraph before moving on. Given that homosexual unions are illegal, being specifically proscribed by the Marriage Act 1961, how does the Victorian government legitimately propose to place children into the possession of those who contravene the law? As a society, we are not particularly at ease with the idea of natural children living in close proximity with those who operate outside the law, yet now we are proposing to put vulnerable children into the hands of those who have no legal standing and pretend, on the foolish notion of “equality”, that a travesty is the same as a reality!
5. Protection for the Vulnerable:
This leads to the last point. The Adoption Act 1984 makes it plain that the adoption process is to work for the child’s welfare. Section 9 could not be any clearer when it states, boldly and succinctly, that, “In the administration of this Act, the welfare and interests of the child concerned shall be regarded as the paramount consideration.”
This clarion statement is backed up by Section 15:1 (d):
the welfare and interests of the child will be promoted by the adoption;
and by Section 32:
In all matters … the Secretary and … an approved agency shall have regard to adoption as a service for the child.
Now, it is an absolute travesty when anyone betrays the trust given to them when they are in a position of authority; how much more of a disgrace when people willingly turn a blind eye to abuse or the possibility of abuse by ignoring certain facts. There is currently a review under way looking at abuses within certain denominational institutions. As a Christian, I deplore the fact that anyone calling themselves a Christian could not only have knowledge of such acts but then, contrary to God’s Law, make every attempt to cover up these grossly sinful behaviours.[14] Yet, to have integrity, the State must ask and answer honestly as to whether it has been guilty of this very same sin and may in fact be guilty of this sin in the current proposal.
In this present debate, it has become de rigueur to view homosexuality as the pinnacle of manhood and therefore to allow no criticism or contrary evidence to be presented. In such an environment, can we ever be assured, with any certainty, that placing a vulnerable child within a homosexual relationship is in the “welfare and interests of the child”?
Logically, denying a child the input of a father (male) or mother (female) is to necessarily present a false view to the child. How can that view ever be balanced if the weights are placed on one side or the other, rather than one on each side? In fact, it is at this point we must unmask Humanism and its erroneous concept of equality, especially gender equality. We know empirically and revelationally that male and female are different. They differ in outlook, emotion, and temperament, besides having obvious anatomical differences. Thus, the homosexual relationship must skew these inherent, created, attributes, especially when they attempt to transmit homosexuality to the child as a norm.
Again, this is not conjecture. It is a logical consequence of our being made “male and female” in the image of God.[15] It is also a truth evident in the lives of those who have grown up within a homosexual relationship. Despite the noisy chorus of the minority, advocating the wonders of homosexual relationships, there is also the stark, contrary, and capacious evidence from those raised in such relationships, which shows that all is far from rosy in those particular gardens.[16]
Consequently, it must be asked, yet again, Is the Government and the Reviewer going to proceed with this act of foolishness despite the evidence, so as to satisfy a political promise? Are these people going to contravene the specific requirements of the Adoption Act 1984, which have been placed there to protect vulnerable children, for political intrigue?
The simple and, as far as the Government is concerned, unwelcome fact is that the available evidence suggests that placing children with homosexual couples will result in detriment to the child. Thus, the action proposed by the Government violates one of the governing principles of the current legislation, namely, that the adoption must promote the child’s welfare.
6. Conclusion:
As stated throughout, the only way that a review of the Adoption Act 1984, such as promised by the Government, can take place is by ignoring the Biblical and ethical foundation, intent, and purpose of the legislation as it is currently enacted. No review is possible. What would be required is a complete rewrite, not only of the legislation, but of Man and his purpose.
Therefore, we ask that the Reviewer reject this attempt to undermine marriage, family, and society for the sake a few political ‘brownie points’.
Thank you.
Murray McLeod-Boyle.
Footnotes:
[1] The New American Standard Bible, (La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation) 1977. All Bible quotes are from this source.
[2] Exposure Draft of Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012. Available at:
[3] The rule of law points directly to the fact that absolutes exist, God being the Absolute. Its intention and design are to realise that moral absolutes do exist and to build law upon them so that Societies are spared the upheavals that occur when Man rules by a whim and a fancy—this today, that tomorrow.
[4] Emphasis added.
[5] There always is a correlation between primary law and secondary, as we shall see. However, the primary law should, indeed must, govern the secondary law and not the other way around, as is the case in this instance.
[6] Judges 17:6.
[7] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma196185/s5.html
[8] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma196185/s88ea.html
[9] http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/aa1984107/s10a.html
[10] http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/aa1984107/s11.html
[11] It must also be stated that to write a new piece of legislation in order to remove all these obstacles would only serve to create a logical fallacy, for the major premise that God alone is the Definer of marriage can never be removed. Likewise, such action highlights the absolute contradiction present in the Humanist philosophy – the “Minister for Equality” will “remove discrimination against same sex families and their children under adoption laws” by discriminating against others who point out that homosexuals are not families, nor can they ever be families. More on this later.
[12] It is noteworthy that marriage, Biblically defined as a covenant of heterosexual monogamy, serves to define language and especially language in regard to sexuality. Adultery, fornication, sodomy, and bestiality are all abominated by God as deviations from His order. Our Christian forefathers gave us a heritage in language that upheld these definitions. Now, in our modern, enlightened estate, we presume to redefine these terms, but we do so without first establishing and alternative reference point.
[13] See, for example, Romans 1:32 – although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
[14] See: https://www.reformationministries.com.au/blog/2012/11/of-kiddie-fiddlers-the-church-and-the-state/.
[15] A fact that Jesus Himself acknowledged and upheld in Matthew 19:4-6, saying, “And He answered and said, “Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 “Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
[16] See: http://www.dawnstefanowicz.org/;
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/10/10996/;