{"id":31392,"date":"2016-01-23T17:29:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T06:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=31392"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:54:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:54:18","slug":"keeping-marriageequality-off-the-record-burgewords-comments-on-nevermarried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/keeping-marriageequality-off-the-record-burgewords-comments-on-nevermarried\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping #MarriageEquality off the record: @burgewords comments on #NeverMarried"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_31398\" style=\"width: 762px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31398\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-31398 \" style=\"border: 1px solid #808080;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/marriage.jpg?resize=752%2C376\" alt=\"David and Marco Bulmer-Rizzi on their wedding day.\" width=\"752\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/marriage.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/marriage.jpg?resize=300%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/marriage.jpg?resize=768%2C384&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/marriage.jpg?resize=600%2C300&amp;ssl=1 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-31398\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David and Marco Bulmer-Rizzi on their wedding day.<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>It felt like a cold label for what was a beautiful love affair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>WHEN\u00a0the South Australian government was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-australia-35368067\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">caught out by the world\u2019s media<\/a> for its lax approach to recognising overseas same-sex marriages on death certificates, the justifiable outrage about Marco Bulmer-Rizzi being documented\u00a0as &#8220;never married&#8221; to husband David\u00a0resonated with many\u00a0readers.<\/p>\n<p>One small voice of disagreement came from Marriage Alliance, a grassroots anti-marriage equality movement with a presence in Australia, in the form of a tweet defining the Bulmer-Rizzi disenfranchisement as \u201cunusual\u201d and criticising Australian Marriage Equality for politicising the issue.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why do <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AMEQUALITY\">@AMEQUALITY<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BuzzFeed\">@BuzzFeed<\/a> have to exploit the unusual &amp; sad circumstances of a death for political motives? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MMrKXqGac7\">https:\/\/t.co\/MMrKXqGac7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Marriage Alliance (@MarriageAll) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarriageAll\/status\/689656560117673984\">January 20, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This was news to me. From where I sit, the negative treatment of same-sex spouses at the crucial and highly-sensitive time of death certification is so commonplace it\u2019s time Australia admitted this kind of homophobia is the norm.<\/p>\n<p>I should know, because it <a href=\"http:\/\/burgewords.com\/questionable-deeds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">happened to me<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>When my name was removed from my partner Jono\u2019s death certificate in NSW in 2004, it was the result of illegal and underhand action by his blood relatives.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_31404\" style=\"width: 381px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31404\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-31404\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/MIKEYJONO-300x226.jpg?resize=371%2C279\" alt=\"MIKEY:JONO\" width=\"371\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/MIKEYJONO.jpg?resize=300%2C226&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/MIKEYJONO.jpg?resize=768%2C578&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/MIKEYJONO.jpg?resize=1024%2C770&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/MIKEYJONO.jpg?resize=600%2C451&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/MIKEYJONO.jpg?w=1147&amp;ssl=1 1147w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 371px) 100vw, 371px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-31404\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Burge and Jonathan Rosten.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Long after his funeral, I was left to work out for myself what had taken place when Jono\u2019s death certificate was not issued to me but to his mother. My name and any reference to our relationship was missing, and the offensive phrase \u201cnever married\u201d inserted.<\/p>\n<p>It hurt deeply to be coldly cut off from my own life. Legally it made wrapping up Jono\u2019s affairs impossible. Meanwhile, his mother was busy collecting assets\u00a0in her son\u2019s name that were legally mine.<\/p>\n<p>Since my name was not on the document, I couldn\u2019t apply for one independently. I sought help from a lawyer and she too was unable to extract the certificate from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.\u00a0 The funeral company sided with Jono\u2019s mother\u2019s version of our relationship and challenged me to \u201cdo my worst\u201d in fixing the miscarriage of justice.<\/p>\n<p>But I was in shock and grief, the kind it takes years to recover from, the kind I still feel when I see the same thing happen to others.<\/p>\n<p>I heard anecdotal evidence about incorrectly-created death certificates in NSW, from the pre-1999 era, before the state\u2019s de-facto laws were amended to recognise same-sex spousal rights. The majority of these stories were about community warriors of the HIV-AIDS crisis, when deceased long-term spouses were routinely listed as \u201cnever married\u201d on death certificates.<\/p>\n<p>Almost two years after his death, I managed to get Jono\u2019s death certificate re-issued and our relationship acknowledged. In order to ensure the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages ceased to operate in contravention of the state de-facto laws, I wrote to the NSW Attorney-General, the ALP\u2019s Bob Debus, but I never received more than a staffer\u2019s reply that the matter was being looked into.<\/p>\n<p>That wall of political denial is what ultimately assisted me in making a submission to the Human Rights Commission in 2006 when it was investigating its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.humanrights.gov.au\/our-work\/sexual-orientation-sex-gender-identity\/publications\/same-sex-same-entitlements\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>Same Sex, Same Entitlements<\/i><\/a> report.<\/p>\n<p>Years later, when what happened to me eventually happened to someone else, I felt a terrible mix of validation and guilt. Having a potential ally was great, but for the worst of reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Australian academic and LGBTI activist Dennis Altman\u2019s partner Anthony died in 2012. The couple lived in Victoria at the time of death, and Altman wrote: \u2018There was no provision on the death certificate to list Anthony as my de-facto partner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/lifestyle\/life-after-anthony-20130303-2ff8z.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his heartfelt account of life after his partner\u2019s death<\/a>, Altman outlined several of the challenges all surviving spouses face, although I didn\u2019t realise at the time what an opponent of marriage equality Dennis Altman was, whereas since my disenfranchisement, access to our strongest, most legally-binding, irrefutable symbol of relationship became one of my driving forces.<\/p>\n<p>By 2013, although five successive governments had enacted a range of laws since Jono\u2019s death, recognising same-sex attracted relationships after the death of a spouse in\u00a0everything from equal superannuation access to social security benefits, only Kevin Rudd had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OZ9fMlt33s0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">publicly acknowledged the need for marriage equality<\/a>. His reason: to end \u201csuch unnecessary angst in the gay and lesbian community, it just shouldn\u2019t be the case\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>I recognised that word, \u2018angst\u2019. It spoke loudly to the dreadful mix of apprehension and fear that I\u2019d endured. Rudd never publicly named the LGBTI staffer who\u2019d communicated so effectively to him the need for marriage equality, but if anyone else was feeling the angst of disenfranchisement, it wasn\u2019t apparent.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_31401\" style=\"width: 379px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31401\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-31401\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/6x8rx2h2-1331682317.jpg?resize=369%2C207\" alt=\"Academic and LGBTI activist Dennis Altman.\" width=\"369\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/6x8rx2h2-1331682317.jpg?w=668&amp;ssl=1 668w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/6x8rx2h2-1331682317.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/6x8rx2h2-1331682317.jpg?resize=600%2C338&amp;ssl=1 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 369px) 100vw, 369px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-31401\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Academic and LGBTI activist Dennis Altman.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>That was until Dennis Altman appeared on a special episode of the ABC\u2019s<i> Q&amp;A<\/i> &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/tv\/qanda\/txt\/s4254204.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Between a frock and a hard place<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>When the Reverend Fred Nile made the point that marriage equality was not necessary, he said: \u201cAll the laws were changed a couple of years ago to give de-facto, homosexual couples exactly the same rights as married couples in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut you are wrong,\u201d Altman said. \u201cYou are wrong and I will tell you why you are wrong and it happens in a very important area. When my partner died, the death certificate could not record that he\u2019d been in a relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I&#8217;m happy to change a death certificate arrangement if that&#8217;s what happened to you,\u201d Nile casually replied.<\/p>\n<p>Altman said: \u201cGood. Go talk to the Government of Victoria.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At that point I threw a tea towel at the television. Obviously, Altman knew the angst\u00a0but had kept it under wraps. A month later, he begrudgingly <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/opponents-of-same-sex-marriage-are-losing-touch-with-secular-reality-44558\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">declared a shift in his thinking<\/a> and came out in support of marriage equality.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There\u2019s a misconception that same-sex couples and married heterosexuals have equal legal rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The issue of de-facto laws vs marriage equality came into sharp focus in the wake of another tragedy, the sudden death of Tasmanian Ben Jago\u2019s partner Nathan in January, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Journalist Tracey Spicer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/comment\/its-an-urban-myth-that-same-sex-couples-and-married-heterosexuals-have-equal-legal-rights-20151108-gktjcu.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported on the case for Fairfax Media<\/a> in November. \u201cThere\u2019s a misconception that same-sex couples and married heterosexuals have equal legal rights,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt&#8217;s an urban myth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Removed from his position as Nathan\u2019s next of kin almost instantly, and replaced by his partner\u2019s mother, Ben&#8217;s\u00a0story had strong resonance with mine, although he was made to endure the added indignity of having to sit at the back of the gathering at his partner\u2019s funeral, with no public mention of the relationship during the service.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_31408\" style=\"width: 362px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31408\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-31408\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/5f81a_547350-300x174.jpg?resize=352%2C204\" alt=\"Ben Jago.\" width=\"352\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/5f81a_547350.jpg?resize=300%2C174&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/5f81a_547350.jpg?resize=600%2C348&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/5f81a_547350.jpg?w=635&amp;ssl=1 635w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 352px) 100vw, 352px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-31408\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Jago.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Jago had trouble with the Tasmanian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, who gave him conflicting information about what he could do about his situation. His case will come before Tasmania\u2019s Anti-Discrimination Tribunal this year.<\/p>\n<p>I read that news with a sense of camaraderie for Ben. Good on him for having the courage to seek some kind of recourse.<\/p>\n<p>Another Fairfax journalist, Monique Farmer, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailylife.com.au\/life-and-love\/love-sex-and-relationships\/when-a-lifelong-relationship-is-erased-by-a-death-certificate-20151209-gljcdx.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported in December on the difficulty in creating a correct death certificate for her Aunt Julia<\/a>, who\u2019d lived for thirty years with her partner Annie, already dead by the time of Julia&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were married, or at least they seemed that way to me. Their lives were as inter-mingled as my parents\u2019 were, perhaps even more so,\u201d Farmer wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHad they been de-factos for those 30 years? Well, legally yes \u2013 they lived together in a sexual relationship, their finances were combined, they owned property together. But it felt like a cold label for what was a beautiful love affair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Faced with what Farmer later described in a tweet to me as \u201ca daze of grief\u201d, she ultimately selected the descriptor \u2018never married\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>And she felt the angst, also: \u201cWith a heavy heart I ticked that box. This meant that the next section of the death registration, asking for her partner&#8217;s name and other details, was left sadly blank. As if she&#8217;d never loved or been loved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I tweeted Farmer to let her know I\u2019d been able to amend Jono\u2019s death certificate some time after he died. She replied: \u201cSince writing the story I&#8217;ve been thinking the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The legal trap that David and Marco Bulmer-Rizzi entered when they chose to honeymoon in Adelaide in January was set long before they arrived. Why would any Australian citizen assume their relationship &#8211; particularly a marriage &#8211; was not enshrined by every law of the land?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_31410\" style=\"width: 375px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31410\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-31410\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Screen-shot-2016-01-23-at-4.30.31-PM-300x175.png?resize=365%2C213\" alt=\"Marco Bulmer-Rizzi.\" width=\"365\" height=\"213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Screen-shot-2016-01-23-at-4.30.31-PM.png?resize=300%2C175&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Screen-shot-2016-01-23-at-4.30.31-PM.png?resize=600%2C350&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Screen-shot-2016-01-23-at-4.30.31-PM.png?w=613&amp;ssl=1 613w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 365px) 100vw, 365px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-31410\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marco Bulmer-Rizzi.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In his grief-stricken interview, I got\u00a0the sense that Marco Bulmer-Rizzi felt\u00a0duped by a terrible system that compounded his shock with\u00a0its inability to be real about what love between any two people means.\u00a0That system has been supported by plenty of mixed messages and slow realisations within the LGBTI community, but\u00a0it will take well-formulated, national marriage equality legislation to\u00a0sweep away the mess our unequal\u00a0state laws are currently creating.<\/p>\n<p>Marco Bulmer-Rizzi left Australia hoping what happened to him would never happen again. What denial and obfuscation has this country indulged in that my case &#8211; twelve years prior &#8211; was not enough to change any laws or draw an apology from Bob Carr, NSW state premier at the time Jono and I were labelled \u201cnever married\u201d?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-30210\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/26065114-200x300.jpg?resize=181%2C272\" alt=\"26065114\" width=\"181\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/26065114.jpg?resize=200%2C300&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/26065114.jpg?w=317&amp;ssl=1 317w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 181px) 100vw, 181px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>Marriage Alliance is way off the mark. Australia has been caught out with homophobic anomalies in our relationship legislation at least five times. The Bulmer-Rizzi story is bringing more disenfranchised same-sex spouses out of the woodwork.<\/p>\n<p>The question Australian politicians need to ask themselves is how many more painful miscarriages of justice they require before allowing a marriage equality free vote on the floor of parliament?<\/p>\n<p><em>Australian Marriage Equality\u00a0has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.australianmarriageequality.org\/petitions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a current petition<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0end marriage discrimination. Michael Burge&#8217;s book &#8216;Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/burgewords.com\/questionable-deeds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is out now<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>\u00a9 Michael Burge, all rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It felt like a cold label for what was a beautiful love affair. WHEN\u00a0the South Australian government was caught out by the world\u2019s media for its lax approach to recognising overseas same-sex marriages on death certificates, the justifiable outrage about Marco Bulmer-Rizzi being documented\u00a0as &#8220;never married&#8221; to husband David\u00a0resonated with many\u00a0readers. One small voice of [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":31398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,585,2375,855,854],"tags":[2134,2881,1242,2883,2879,2880,2785,1654,2884,2487,2878,2631,2463,2882],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/marriage.jpg?fit=800%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-8ak","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}