CANBERRA, Australia (WordNews.org) Sept. 22, 2012 – The Australian parliament voted overwhelmingly against a gay-marriage measure that would have resulted in redefining marriage.
The lower house of parliament voted against the bill 98-42 on Sept. 19. The next day, the Senate defeated the measure, 41-26.
World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs said Australian pro-family groups worked hard to have the measure defeated. Three of those groups were partners, including the Australian Family Association, Endeavour Forum and Dads-4-Kids Fatherhood Foundation.
“When the governing Australian Labor Party abandoned its longstanding defense of natural marriage, it was supposed to all be over except for the celebration on the part of homosexual activists,” Jacobs said. Earlier this year thousands of pro-family leaders gathered to affirm natural marriage in The Madrid Declaration of World Congress of Families VI (May 25-27, 2012), which was unanimously adopted by more than 3,200 delegates from 72 nations.
That declaration provides in part:
“We affirm the natural family to be the union of a man and a woman through marriage for the purposes of sharing love and joy, propagating children, providing their moral education, building a vital home economy, offering security in times of trouble, and binding the generations.”
Jacobs noted in the United States, 31 states have now adopted the definition of marriage as “the union of a man and a woman,” all by popular vote. The latest was North Carolina, in May, by a vote of 61 percent to 39 percent.
“Every time the people have had a chance to vote directly on the issue, the only definition of natural marriage that protects children has carried decisively,” Jacobs said.