Gay marriage has recently gone from being a hot topic to a sweltering topic in Australia. When surveyed, 22 of 39 government MPs expressed support for laws allowing same-sex couples to marry, and only seven were opposed. But despite this, they show no signs of changing the law. On the other side of parliament, Liberal Senator George Brandis has made the following unintentionally funny statement on behalf of the opposition: “We are unequivocally opposed to all forms of discrimination, we are unequivocally opposed to altering the definition of marriage.”

Today, the Courier-Mail published an article by Dr David van Gend, entitled Same-sex marriage hurts kids. “Two lesbian women may be model citizens,” he wrote, “but neither of them can be a dad to a little boy.” Award-winningly sharp-tongued author William Kostakis immediately responded with an article entitled Dearest Douchebag. “The closest thing my (straight) father did to parenting,” he said, “was avoid paying child support and not call on Christmas, teaching me the importance of being self-reliant and never trusting anyone. I was raised by two women, my mother and my grandmother, who, between them, kept me in school, kept me clothed, kept me fed, and you know what? I think I came out pretty darn fantastic.”

Writer/producer/actress/broadcaster Marieke Hardy made an interesting point on the ABC website today. “The fact that we’re even still having this debate as the major parties play delicate games of hot potato is appalling,” she wrote. “‘I do believe in equal opportunity for all Australians,’ they murmur as one, ‘though I think marriage should be between a man and a woman’. Why exactly? How would we all feel if the debate replaced the word ‘gay’ with ‘Aboriginal’? My guess is that even Bob Katter would voice an objection.”

I was inspired by this. I took David van Gend’s Courier-Mail article, and replaced the words “gay”, “lesbian”, “homosexual” and “same-sex” with “Aboriginal.”

It appears below. I think you’ll be horrified by its bigotry - I was.

Aboriginal marriage hurts kids

Aboriginals are not second-class citizens but an Aboriginal man certainly makes a second-class mother.

Two Aboriginal women may be model citizens, but neither of them can be a dad to a little boy.

The most serious objection to Aboriginal marriage is that it means Aboriginal parenting, and Aboriginal parenting means depriving a child of either his mother or his father.

The Aboriginal marriage debate, at its heart, is not about the rights and needs of the adults, but of the child.

There are already tragic situations where a child is deprived of a mother or a father - such as the death or desertion of a parent.

Some broken families reform as a Aboriginal household and nothing can or should be done about that, but such tragedy and brokenness should not be wilfully inflicted on a child by the law of the land.

A child needs at least the chance of a mum and a dad in his or her life and Aboriginal marriage makes that impossible.

The violation of this fundamental right and profound emotional need of a child means - from the child’s perspective - that Aboriginal marriage is deprivation, not liberation.

Marriage is a compound right and includes the legal right to children. The normalising of Aboriginal marriage would mean that Aboriginal couples would have equal standing with male-female couples for adopting children.

The “marriage” of two Aboriginals would deprive an adopted boy of his role model for being a man, or a growing girl of a mother to learn from and confide in.

The sentimental claptrap that passes for debate on Aboriginal marriage would have disgusted even that old atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell.

Russell understood that society has no interest in passing laws about people’s private affairs and that the primary reason for the public contract of marriage is to bind the man to the woman for the long task of rearing their children.

As he wrote in Marriage and Morals: “It is through children alone that sexual relations become of importance to society, and worthy to be taken cognisance of by a legal institution.”

Aboriginal relations do not give rise to children, so such relations are of no institutional importance to society.

The biological triple-bond of man and woman and child is nature’s foundation for human life, not a social fad to be cut to shape according to political whim.

It is beyond the power of any parliament to repeal nature and equate Aboriginal relationships with the inherently male-female project of family formation.

Yet inner-city Greens and muddled MPs are so out of touch with nature that they think that abolishing a mother will be of no consequence.

They are wrong and any such legislation would be moral vandalism. They are also going against common sense, with 86 per cent of Australians, according to a 2009 Galaxy poll, affirming that children should be raised by their own mother and father.

Opposition to Aboriginal marriage is all about the child, and no parliament has the right to impose a motherless or fatherless life on a little child.

Wow. As I said to William, the presence of a male role model clearly doesn’t guarantee that a boy will become a well-adjusted man. I assume David van Gend had one, and look how he turned out.

Author David Levithan once said that “there is no such thing as an acceptable prejudice.” He was right. I accept that legalising gay marriage will make some people uncomfortable, but that’s not a good enough reason to keep oppressing a minority group. Once upon a time, the idea of allowing women to vote made people uncomfortable too. The sooner we change the law, the sooner everyone will get over it.

Come on, government. What are you, chicken?