AN AUSTRALIAN COUPLE have taken the unusual step of publicly threatening to divorce if same-sex marriage is made legal in Australia.
Nick Jensen has written a column for City News in Canberra where he says he and his wife, Dr Sarah Jensen, believe that a change in law may force the couple to divorce.
Australia’s opposition party is currently looking at putting a bill to parliament to legislate for same-sex marriage.
The high-school sweethearts married at 21 and Jensen says that “the decision to divorce is not one we’ve taken lightly”.
You see, after our divorce, we’ll continue to live together, hopefully for another 50 years. And, God willing, we’ll have more children. We’ll also continue to refer to each other as “husband” and “wife” and consider ourselves married by the Church and before God.
But he said that, as Christians, they believe that marriage is “not a human invention” and that it is “the union of a man and a woman before a community in the sight of God”.
My wife and I, as a matter of conscience, refuse to recognise the government’s regulation of marriage if its definition includes the solemnisation of same sex couples.
“By changing the definition of marriage, ‘marriage’ will, in years to come, have an altogether different sense and purpose,” writes Jensen.
The opinion piece has received a LOT of commentary, with some suggesting the couple’s views shouldn’t be given such prominent coverage.
The brother of Nick Jensen, Soren Jensen, has since come out to say he strongly supports marriage equality.
My brother is a loving father and husband, in a beautiful supportive marriage, a man of deep religious beliefs and he lives by those truths.
He said his brother is “not a loony, a religious nut” or a hateful person, but has received vicious comments over his opinion piece.
If a couple wants a divorce in Australia, they must have been living separately and apart for at least 12 months, though the Family Court states “it is possible to live together in the same home and still be separated”.
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