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Australian
government vows to block local same-sex marriage laws

Australian
government vows to block local same-sex marriage laws

Australia's conservative prime minister vowed Thursday to block any legislation by the nation's capital giving gay and lesbian couples the same rights as married couples. The Australian Capital Territory, which governs national capital Canberra, earlier this week became the first state or territory in the country to introduce legislation recognizing same-sex unions. But Prime Minister John Howard and his chief law enforcer, Atty. Gen. Philip Ruddock, vowed to block the move. "There is a special place [in] Australian society for marriage, the institution of marriage as historically understood, and we do not intend to allow that in any way to be undermined," Howard told reporters Thursday. The ACT's chief minister, Jon Stanhope, has said the civil unions bill would establish a domestic relationship separate from marriage under which same-sex couples would be given the same rights as heterosexual couples. "Civil union is not a marriage but will, so far as the law of the ACT is concerned, be treated in the same way," he said Tuesday, when the legislation was introduced. Marriage in Australia is governed by the Commonwealth Marriage Act, which was amended by the federal parliament in 2004 to ban same-sex unions. Howard and Ruddock said the ACT's proposed civil unions would violate the act by conferring marriage status on gay couples. "Let me make it very clear. That will not satisfy the commonwealth [the federal government], and we would include the introduction of legislation to prevent that from occurring," Ruddock said Thursday. "If they seek to portray civil unions as a marriage, in our view, that is quite inappropriate. It is quite misleading; it suggests to people who might be interested in civil union that what they have is a marriage, when in fact it is not." The bill is set to be debated in the ACT legislature in May. (AP)

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