Same-sex marriage 'like allowing people to marry the Eiffel Tower' - Aussie senator

Eric Abetz is a definite "no" on same-sex marriage. Photo / Getty

Australian Liberal senator Eric Abetz has written an article where he says that "marriage equality", if given its genuine meaning, would allow people to marry things like the Eiffel Tower.

Abetz is worried that, if Australia joins New Zealand this year by legalising same-sex marriage, people will soon be able to start marrying things.

"If this is the standard then who is to judge the quality/type/validity of any love - within families, with more than just one other, or indeed why not the Eiffel Tower?" he wrote on the August edition of Family World News, a newsletter edited by conservative Fred Nile.

In an interview with Buzzfeed News, Abetz expanded on his previous statement.

"There are people that are actually saying they want to marry the Eiffel Tower. There are people that say we want a threesome marriage, and 'who are you to judge that marriage should only be between two people?'," he said.

"And indeed, that was the, I think very cogent argument of the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, chief justice Roberts, in his dissenting judgement where he pointed out that once you remove that vital element of it being a man/woman thing, and you just say love is love etc, then basically you open the floodgates to anything.

"I think our society would not accept people being able to marry the Eiffel Tower, but if you just limit it to people then there are issues in relation to polyamory," he added.

The marriage between people and objects is not in discussion in Australia and, as far as the New Zealand Herald has managed to uncover, there is no mass movement towards changing that particular instance of the law.

Abetz is a pretty determined "no" on the issue of same-sex marriage and wants Australian laws to allow people to refuse service to gay people.

The senator defends that a new bill should include a "no-detriment provision" to allow any service provider to refuse service to a gay person.

"So in other words, if you do not support same-sex marriage, you don't have to do anything to support it," he said.