Borrows Chester: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:9045. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I would like to speak in support of the need for a Supplementary Order Paper in respect of protecting the ability of celebrants to be able to refuse to marry gay couples depending on the way they see this particular issue. I have some sensitivity around it having been a civil independent marriage celebrant for a number of years. I have officiated at about I think 100 weddings and in the last 3 weeks I have done a tag team with someone who is currently licensed because I am not currently licensed having handed in my warrant when I became a bit busy as an MP. But I have officiated at two weddings in the last 3 or 4 weeks and I am happily officiating at my nephew’s wedding this Sunday. 
I would also like to point out that although people have said that those civil or independent celebrants do it for the money and that they are authorised by the State so they should marry all-comers in actual fact most of the time I have accepted a bottle of wine as full payment because I saw this as some way I could help people within my community. I was not doing it for any particular reward. At times when mileage was required etc. etc. then we got up to a hundred bucks but generally it was for a bottle of plonk. 
Having said that the point is I believe quite specific here. I agree that there are protections within the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill as it is at the moment that protect those celebrants who are authorised or endorsed as part of the organisation they belong to as long as their organisation which is in effect their sponsor to be a celebrant has a position on gay marriage. It has been raised already tonight that there are churches for instance that do not hold official positions on this issue though a number of members within their community do. But those people who are in the position that I was as an independent celebrant would not be protected in this way. Although there is a clause there that says that no celebrant is obliged to marry any couple who present themselves for marriage the fact is that you would have to tell a lie in order to not perform that marriage. People have said to me even people with whom I am very friendly sitting just there: “You could always just say you are busy.” But in fact that would not be true in the case—[ 
Interruption 
] He is good to listen to for only so long. 
The point of the matter is this: if I decided that I was not going to marry a gay couple who presented themselves for marriage it would be because I did not agree with gay marriage. To create some other fanciful reason that my diary was full would be telling a lie in effect and I do not think people should be put in that position. It is the same as a shopkeeper who does not have to serve somebody in a shop. If someone comes in and wants to buy some goods the shopkeeper can decide whether or not he wants to sell those goods to that person coming into the shop. That is fine. But the Human Rights Act prohibits that shopkeeper from refusing to serve that person on the basis of a number of those bases within the Human Rights Act some of them being sexual orientation race colour creed and all the rest of it—and so it should. 
There is an alignment with what my friend Dr Paul Hutchison was saying when talking about people for instance within the medical fraternity who are able to rely on their moral code and beliefs—well-held religious or otherwise—to not perform certain procedures that people present themselves for. We can think for instance of circumcision of male children some years ago. A doctor was not required to perform that if they did not believe that that was within their keeping or ethics and the performance of pregnancy terminations is exactly the same. If people can think that this issue is different it is not. A medical practitioner is dealing with the physical—that is right. A person in my position as a celebrant who got into it through community service and initiated it through a faith interest is dealing with something spiritual and I do not believe that the physical and the spiritual can necessarily just conveniently diverge for those reasons. 
I think that it is very important that we have an amendment to this bill that makes it quite clear that an independent celebrant can decide not to marry a couple—a gay couple or any couple—who present themselves because of that situation. I just underline it like this too. If a couple came to me and it came to their wedding day and they turned up and they were drunk I would not marry them because I do not believe that they would be in the right space in their heads to get married. If they turned up to present themselves and asked me to take their wedding and I believed that the woman was obviously suffering from physical abuse had been assaulted or in some way was there not because she wanted to get married to this guy but because she was under some sort of duress or pressure I would not marry them. That would be fine because the law says that you are covered and you do not have to. But if I decided not to marry the couple who presented themselves for marriage because of any of those bases under the Human Rights Act I am acting illegally and I believe that as a celebrant as an independent celebrant even one authorised only civilly and not promoted by some organisation of faith I should have the ability to decline that marriage. Thank you.