Nick and Sarah Jensen have announced their possible divorce. Not because they’re having martial problems—in fact, Nick says that “my wife is the only woman I have ever loved, the mother of our children, my perfect match.”
No, Nick and Sarah’s marriage is in peril because of gay people. Specifically, the sanity of Nick and Sarah’s unity is threatened by pending marriage-equality legislation in Australia, where they live.
On Wednesday, Nick wrote in Canberra CityNews that should such laws pass, they may “force” him to dissolve his 10-year marriage.
He assures the masses that he has no intention of actually leaving his lady, writing, “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.”
No, his sacrifice will be entirely in rejecting the benefits of legal marriage—should they also be extended to his fellow countrymen. He says, “My wife and I, as a matter of conscience, refuse to recognize the government’s regulation of marriage if its definition includes the solemnization of same-sex couples.”
It’s worth noting that Nick has a dog in this particular fight beyond his 10-year union—he’s the director of Lachlan Macquarie Institute, an entirely donor-funded conservative Christian lobbyist group. Their goal is “to see Christian principles influencing the way we are governed, do business, and relate to each other as a community.”
When reached by Fairfax Media for additional comment, Nick brought up the ol’ slippery-slope argument, saying that allowing gay people to marry will lead to polygamy.
“Once you say that marriage is detached from children, [that it’s] just about love, then when three people come to the state and say ‘Well, we’re all in love’, then the state has no grounds, except unjust discrimination, to say why they can’t get married,” he argued.
We have reached out to Lachlan Macquarie Institute to let Nick know that many of Australia’s marriage-equality advocates are actually anti-polygamy and will update if we receive a response.
We are currently looking into how to contact all of Australia’s gay folks to see if they have any comment on potentially ruining Nick and Sarah’s marriage. We’re sure they feel super terrible about that.