THE State Government’s renaming of the Civil Partnerships Act to the Registered Relationships Act will do little to change the legislation’s undermining of the institution of marriage.
A decision to roll back laws on surrogacy passed by the previous Government in 2010 has also been criticised as not going far enough.
Queensland Bioethics Centre and the John Paul II Centre for Family and Life director Dr Ray Campbell said one of the problems with state-sanctioned civil unions and their various alternatives “is that they all tend to undermine the institution of marriage in society”.
“Potentially these laws contribute to unstable family life,” he said.
Australian Family Association (AFA) spokeswoman Tempe Harvey criticised the Campbell Newman Government decision and praised Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) attempts to amend the act.
“LNP members voted down Katter amendments to Labor’s Civil Partnerships Act that would have removed formal State recognition of homosexual relationships,” she said.
“Perhaps the least scrutinised Bill ever to pass through the Queensland Parliament was then passed in a late-night sitting, less than two days’ after its introduction.”
Regarding the Govern-ment’s plans to limit altruistic surrogacy arrangements to heterosexual couples in relationships longer than two years, Dr Campbell said “the recognition that a child should have a mother and father is welcome”.
“However, the Church does not condone any form of surrogacy,” he said.
“The introduction of a third person to the relationship is an injustice to the child and not respectful of the good of marriage.”
The Government’s decisions regarding same-sex civil unions and surrogacy came after an often-stormy debate in State Parliament which ran into the early hours of Friday, June 22.
