Big Ideas: Marriage Equality – The International Experience

You may have already seen our excellent IQ2 debate – Same Sex Marriage Should Not Be Legalised– on ABC1 or NEWS24, if not you can watch it here.

This particular debate from the Whitlam Institute brings you an international perspective from two very interesting figures; Professor Lee Badgett from the United States and Boris Dittrich from the Netherlands. It also features Rodney Croome, Australian Marriage Equality campaign director.

Badgett is Professor of Economics from the University of Massachusetts and author of When Gay People Get Married, the winner of the American Psychological Society’s Distinguished Book Award.

Boris Dittrich is a long time human rights campaigner and as an MP i n the Netherlands introduced legislation that saw that country become the first to allow same sex marriages. He’s been working with Human rights Watch out of New York since 2007.

Both Badgett and Dittrich take a very different stance on gay marriage to Professor Annamarie Jagose in our IQ2 debate. You might recall Jagose’s view that ‘marriage needed gays and lesbians more than they needed it’. Jagose sees marriage as a failed institution delivering absolutely nothing worth aspiring to for gay people.

Badgett and Dittrich chart the legalisation of same sex marriage as having very positive effects – ‘ social inclusion, families being much more accepting of one’s partner; greater commitment to one’s partner, and greater security and sense of normalcy’.

It would have been a fiery debate if we’d put together Jagose, Badgett and Dittrich in front of a chiefly gay audience!