Calls for Same-Sex Marriage bill to be renamed the Definition of Marriage bill

EXCLUSIVE: Embattled human rights chief Gillian Triggs is now calling for the “Same-Sex Marriage” bill to be renamed because it discriminates against people who don’t identify as a man or woman.

President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs. Picture: Kym Smith

EMBATTLED human rights chief Gillian Triggs is now calling for the “Same-Sex Marriage” bill to be renamed because it discriminates against people who don’t identify as a man or woman.

In a show of political correctness gone mad, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), wants it changed to the “Definition of Marriage” bill.

“The draft title of the Act unnecessarily and inaccurately excludes couples which are neither ‘the union of a man and a woman’ nor ‘same sex’,’’ the federal government agency has told a Senate ­inquiry into the bill.

“The proposed amendments to the Marriage Act would enable two people to marry irrespective of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.

“This would also include couples in which one or both parties have something other than ‘male’ or ‘female’ recorded on their birth certificate.’’

The draft bill redefines marriage as the “union of two people, to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life’’.

A Senate committee is holding a public inquiry into the legislation, which would come into force only if Australians vote to legalise same-sex marriage in a plebiscite.

The federal Attorney-General’s department has told the inquiry “people who are intersex or of a non-binary gender would be able to marry’’.

The draft law lets religious groups and priests refuse to marry couples unless they are man and woman. Civil celebrants, too, could boycott same-sex marriages on “conscientious or religious’’ grounds. But the AHRC says civil celebrants “perform a function of the State’’ so should be forced to marry all couples.

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“Australian law does not enable service providers to discriminate on the basis of conscience, as distinct from religion, with respect to someone’s race, sex, disability or age,’’ it says. “Likewise, it should not enable service providers to discriminate on the basis of conscience with ­respect to someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status or relationship or marriage status.’’

The demand for a name change is the latest in a line of high-profile controversies to engulf Ms Triggs.

She was slammed last year for the AHRC’s handling of cases against cartoonist Bill Leak and Queensland University of Technology students.