Gay marriage: As important as race? Raimond Gaita

10 November 2011

Raimond Gaita

The Herbert & Valmae Freilich Foundation Annual Lecture in Bigotry and Intolerance 2011

When gays ask to be granted the right to marry, they are not asking for something that can be adequately conceptualised by an ideal of equality that demands equal access to good and opportunities for all citizens of a polity. Nor do they ask for something that can adequately be expressed in classical liberal ideals. They ask, I believe, for the recognition, by their fellow citizens, of the depth and dignity of their sexuality; and they ask it from those of their fellow citizens who appear to believe that gay sexuality does not have the kind of depth that deserves to be celebrated in marriage. Married love, such people believe, deepens sexual love, but it can do so only for sexuality that has the potential for such deepening. They believe, therefore, that gay marriage is a kind of conceptual absurdity, even when they do not find it morally distasteful. There are many kinds of opposition to gay marriage: this kind has, limited but interesting, analogies with the incapacity of racists to see depth in the lives of the victims of their denigration.

Broad Topics: Law

Sub-topics: Law, Justice & Law Enforcement

Areas: ANU College of Law

Raimond Gaita is Professorial Fellow in the Melbourne Law School and the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne and Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at King’s College London. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Gaita's is the author of many books among them: Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception , Romulus, My Father which was nominated by the New Statesman as one of the best books of 1999 and was made into a feature film starring Eric Bana and Frank Potente; A Common Humanity: Thinking About Love & Truth & Justice, which was nominated by The Economist's as one of best books of 2000; The Philosopher's Dog, short-listed for the New South Wales Premier's Award and The Age Book of the Year, Breach of Trust: Truth, Morality and Politics, After Romulus, and, as editor and contributor, Gaza: Morality Law and Politics, Muslims and Multiculturalism and (with Alex Miller and Alex Skovron) Singing for all he’s Worth: Essays in Honour of J.G Rosenberg.

Because he believes that it is generally a good thing for philosophers to address an educated and hard-thinking lay audience as well as their colleagues, Gaita has contributed extensively to public discussion about reconciliation, collective responsibility, the role of moral considerations in politics, the Holocaust, genocide, crimes against humanity, education (the nature of teaching as a vocation, the role of love in learning) and the plight of the universities.