John Roughan: Call me a homophobe and I won't argue

Hands up all who wanted a referendum on the Civil Union Bill. I thought not. Your reasons, if you're male, are probably much like mine. Homosexuality is something I don't want to think about, hear about, discuss or decide upon.

I didn't envy MPs these past two weeks. Had I been in Parliament I'd have voted for the bill, but wouldn't have been in the House for the debate and certainly wouldn't have made a speech about it. There are variants of the human condition that you simply have to accept and, in so far as their behaviour harms nobody else, the law should accommodate them.

I am more interested in homophobia, because, believe me, it is a fact of male sexuality and because it seems to be one of the endlessly fascinating differences between the sexes. Women, as far as I can tell, suffer less aversion to homosexuality than many, dare I say, most, men do.

Women seem quite relaxed about the idea of sexual contact between other women and they positively enjoy the company of men with no sexual interest in them. Men, of course, don't mind the idea of sexual contact between women either; they find it erotic. But the idea of two men in any sort of sexual embrace does terrible things to their stomach.

Well, it does mine. The last time I alluded to this I was accused of being a rare and sad case of homophobia and told I shouldn't speak in a way that is so hurtful to homosexuals. I have no wish to hurt them. I regret that this might be read by some whose friendship I value. But I don't think my case is rare. Homophobia is as real as homosexuality and it needs to be treated as seriously.

It is a mistake, I think, to suppose that homophobia is in decline simply because the tone of opposition to the Civil Union Bill this week was more respectful than it was to the legalising of homosexual activity two decades ago.

Tolerance is an intellectual and verbal exercise, homophobia is visceral.

It is also - and this needs to be understood - visual. In their drive for civil rights homosexual MPs have taken to holding hands and kissing each other in public. They want visibility above all. That's the problem.

When the bill passed, Chris Carter said it was time to bring such things into the open because "people fear and misunderstand what they don't know". He clearly does not understand what overt homosexual behaviour does to a male like me. I would go out of my way to avoid the slightest glimpse of it.

There are heterosexual men, particularly in the media and other liberal circles, who say they do not feel this way. They profess total indifference to sexual orientation and can enjoy, even imitate, "gay" mannerisms. They amaze me. If they are being honest rather than merely sophisticated, then maybe it is possible to engineer human nature in the way liberal legislators would like.

BUT I don't think it is possible. The most compelling speeches in Parliament this past fortnight have been from fairly conservative MPs with a sibling or a child who is gay. They talked about how their parents or they themselves have overcome homophobia. Whether they realised it or not, they were attesting to the fact that it takes a force as deep and unconditional as family love to offset the instinct I am trying to describe.

Without family ties, tolerance is just a theory. Ask my opinion of gay marriage and I will say readily I think civil unions don't go far enough. Their wish to marry doesn't undermine marriage, quite the opposite.

There is no good reason I can see that these people should not enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals to have a loving commitment socially recognised.

But I physically cannot stand the sight of it. I can't help this. If it appears on the street, I look away. If it's on the stage or screen I'm out of there. That's homophobia. It is not pretty, not rational, I am not proud of it, but it's true.

It is common and it would be wrong to believe it can be legislated away. Wrong for children, for example. The next item in this agenda will be equal rights for gay couples to adopt children.

It happens already, of course, in quiet, informal ways, just as gay marriages were formed, and sometimes blessed, in quiet, informal ways long before the campaign started in liberal countries for their legal recognition.

The goal of the agenda is not civil rights, it is social respect. The various rights that were to be attached to civil unions - next-of-kin status at times of accident or death, for example - were contained in a companion bill that has been postponed indefinitely and nobody is at all concerned about that.

Each step assists the next. The Civil Union Act will provide an argument for equal rights to adoption and all forms of artificial insemination.

Proponents will assert, with impeccable logic as far as it goes, that since gay partnerships are now legally recognised there are no grounds for adoption agencies and fertility clinics to deny them the same consideration as others.

This is the point at which I will part company with tolerance. It's the point at which equal rights for this variant of the human condition could do harm to somebody else. Namely, the child.

A liberal society cannot stop homosexual couples making private parenting arrangements, any more than it can stop some ill-equipped heterosexuals from parenting. But when the state is asked to put children into these situations, I think it is time to say no. Children are resilient and they might never resent the circumstances they were put in, but why take the chance?

Call that question homophobic and you're right. The aversion is real and needs to be acknowledged. It is not going to be legislated to extinction.

* John Roughan is a Herald assistant editor