Education Policy Analysis Archives

Running head: POLICY ANALYSIS
Policy Analysis
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1POLICY ANALYSIS
Introduction
The LGBTQ community all over the world has faced much challenges when it comes
to their rights as humans. They have faced violence and discriminations all over the world
and are still experiencing many social stigma and lack of social support due to their sexual
preference or orientation (Kolstee & Hopwood, 2016). The legislative amendments all over
the world has been slow to uptake the issues related to the LGBTQ community. Though US
and many other western countries have legalized and normalized same sex marriage, many of
the countries still retain their laws of discrimination against these people. The greatest reason
behind that is the minority status of these people and their lack of representation in the
political area. The human right commission has recognized homosexuality as human rights
but has also stated that they have limited power to anything to ensure that all the countries
follows that (Aihw.gov.au. 2018). Most of the religious countries still criminalize same sex
relationships and much struggle continues for the human rights of the community. In
Australia, the Marriage Equality act was proposed in 2012 and was finally passed in 2017. In
this paper, the policy of Marriage equality is analyzed using the Bacchi WPR framework.
Discussion
Context
The context of equality in right to marry has been controversial in many cases. In
most countries, earlier, only marriage between a man and a woman was considered to be
valid and the right of the people having different gender preference or orientation was not
considered much. The reason behind this is the religious beliefs of people (Perales, Bouma &
Campbell, 2019). Most of the religions, mainly Christianity, considers homosexuality as
abomination and abnormal, and punishable by religious law, most of the legislations reflected

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that. As people become more accepting and flexible, started questioning the religious
teachings, the marriage laws too, were questioned by human rights activists.
The Human rights commission has recognized same sex marriage as natural and as
their right. The minority status of the LGBTQ community all over the world, especially in
Australia, is also another reason why this issue has been overlooked so long. Only 5% of the
Australia’s population recognize themselves as belonging to the particular community,
according to the 2016 census (Gay Marriage Around the World. Pew Research Center's
Religion & Public Life Project. 2020). They do not have much voice and representation in the
political situation. Moreover, they face social stigma and discrimination on the grounds of
their sexual preference. There have numerous medical experiments and initiatives that wanted
to normalize the orientation of this people to heterosexuality by surgery or hormonal therapy
(Gay Marriage Around the World. Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project.
2020). All this has led to the lack of support from social context that has led to a reduced
health outcome from this community. Thus, improving the scenario and providing them with
equal rights in marriage was becoming important.
History
The Marriage act of 1961 defines marriage as a union which happens between a man
and a woman. This explicitly says that only a man and woman can marry thus denying the
rights of the LGBTQ community to marry their spouses. Moreover, the law also does not
allow the people of LGBTQ community to change their gender identity which are forcing
them to remain married to their spouses (Marriage Equality (2012) | Australian Human
Rights Commission. Humanrights.gov.au. 2020). This is a clear violation of human rights of
the LGBTQ community of Australia and there have been much discussion regarding this.

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Following this, several other bills have been amended to include marriage equality in
Australia and ensure more equality in the right to marry.
It is Australia’s legal obligation and duty to protect and ensure the human rights of
people irrespective of their gender, gender orientation and gender preference (Perales &
Campbell, 2017). Moreover, the LGBTQ community, all over the world is a minority
community who have faced much denial and suppression throughout the time. The first
initiative to pass equal marriage act was done by New Zealand in 1999 in Joslin v New
Zealand when the case showed that the Marriage Act 1955 discriminated against people
belonging to the same sex relationship (Marriage Equality (2012) | Australian Human Rights
Commission. Humanrights.gov.au. 2020). Later, France, USA, UK, Belgium all followed
suit. Australia took the first initiative in the year 2008, the Commonwealth Parliament
amended the marriage act many other acts that were related to same sex marriage rights and
their children. This step gave many of the rights of the same-sex relationships.
In 2012, new bills were proposed to remove the prohibition on same sex civil
marriage and finally in 2017, Australia achieved same sex marriage equality and people from
the LGBTQ community could marry their desires partners, adopt children and enjoy their
human rights (Kolstee & Hopwood, 2016). The implication of this policy is immense. This
policy removes the stigma and discrimination that the LGBTQ community embers faced. It
also reduced the negative health outcomes that are related to the social exclusion and
homophobia that these people face.
Outline of relevant theory for policy analysis
The policy of same sex marriage or the Marriage Amendment Act 2017 will be
evaluated using the framework of Bachhi WPR framework (). The framework is known as
“What’s the problem represented to be?” seeks to delve into the underlying assumptions and

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the methods of representing the issue that seems resistant to change. The problem with any
policy that cannot bring desired result is the way it has represented the problem it is trying to
solve. The approach to the problem decides the advantage and the disadvantages that the
intended groups face. The strength of this framework is that it questions the very basic of the
policy making rather than the intentions of the policy makers (Aswegen, Hyatt & Goodley,
2019). It does not take the representation of the problem for granted. The concern of this
approach is social justice as its end result.
The WPR policy analysis process consists of six steps. The first step is the
identification of the problem in the policy, in this case, the problem with the representation of
the issue in the policies so far. The second step is to identify the presuppositions and
assumptions that guide the representation of the policy. The third step is to understand the
way through which the problem has come to be represented the way it has been in the policy.
The forth is to determine the areas that have been left unproblematic and the areas that needs
to be rethought using a different approach (Larsson, 2018). The fifth step is the analysis of
the effects that the problematic representation has caused and the final step is to determine
where that representation has been defended and the method that can replace or change the
present problematic representation so that positive outcome can be expected.
The Bacchi WPR policy analysis framework has been chosen to analyze the marriage
equality policy for various reasons. The first reason is the universality of the framework. The
framework has been designed in such a way that any policy can be analyzed using this.
Moreover, the framework addresses the underlying issues rather than trying to come up with
surface solutions (Lindblom, 2017). It also identifies approaches that can change the core
assumptions that are making the issue resistant to change. The framework is also easy to
follow and provides a clear logical flow which makes it flexible and easy to use in this
regard.

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Analysis of the policy using Bacchi WPR framework
Step 1: Problem identification
The policy of equal marriage in Australia has been created in order to ensure civil
marriage rights to all people including the LGBTQ community. The problem that can be
recognized here is the assumption that giving rights for marriage will solve the issues related
to family for LGBTQ people. The problem lies in the policy as it does not provide these
people the right to include all the names of the parents in their children’s birth certificate. In
many cases, this creates problems as there could be more than two parents, including
biological and legal that needs to be included (Roos & Mackay, 2019). The problem to ensure
marriage equality was based on a language specificity of article 23(2) which stated men and
women rather than any gender neutral word. The article was not considered non-
discriminatorily. The statement of the article 23(2) goes like this, “the right of men and
women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized” (Marriage
Equality (2012) | Australian Human Rights Commission. Humanrights.gov.au. 2020). This
clearly states that founding a family is a natural part of marriage and the marriage equality
law does not recognize the complexity that comes with same sex marriage, thus creating
barrier for them to be recognized as family, legally.
Step 2
The assumption that guides the policy is that family consists of two parents and the
recognition of the biological parents or adoptive parents are enough for the children.
Moreover, it also assumes that the same sex couples are less likely to adopt or prefer children.
Though, the country has become liberal in its approach to same sex marriage, they have not
been able to let go of all the presumptions that they have.

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Step 3
The representation of the stated problem came about as the adoption and child rearing
aspect of the LGBTQ people was not given much deep thought. Due to the discrimination
and ignorance that this community faced has made them much more sensitive to their rights
and dignity. The equal marriage act grants them those rights. The representation of the
problem is also a result of lack of community representation in the legislative and policy
making body (Pmc.gov.au. 2018). The lack of voice that these people have, is reflected in this
policy.
Step 4
The areas that are left unproblematic is the recognition of same sex marriage and their
right to establish a family. The silences in this regard is the provision to include the names of
more than two parents into the birth certificates and the lack of LGBTQ voice in the policy
making as a whole. The problem can be though differently here. As same sex marriage makes
the process of child adaptation and child rearing much more complex, these people needs to
be given the rights to include more than two parent names (Australian Government: Attorney
General's Department. 2020). In many cases, the homosexual couples might be married
before and later might have married a same sex partner. Their child from the first marriage
now has three parents at least who might feel disheartened that one of them is being left out.
This needs to be thought with the light of universal approach. The heterosexual couples also
might need this provision as many couples separate after few years of marriage and remarry.
Step 5
The effects that this representation has created is the barriers in including parent name
into the birth certificates which is leading to more confusion and problems for the children of
the same sex couples. Their complexity of the situation is not being recognized. The similar
problems may surface in the heterosexual couples which is also being overlooked here.

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Step 6
The problem that the policy presents can be solved easily. The first approach would
be to consider both the same sex and heterosexual marriages equally (Beutler & Fenech,
2018). Children from both kinds of marriages may need to include the names of more than
two parents as family systems and structures are becoming more complicated. In Canada, up
to four names can be added which has reduced the problems regarding the scenario. Ensuring
that human rights and integrity is maintained in all aspects will solve the problem (Same-Sex
Marriage: Global Comparisons. Council on Foreign Relations. 2020). In order to do this, the
Commonwealth Parliament needs to recognize equal rights for the LGBTQ community in all
aspects of the law.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the policy of marriage equality,
though provides the LGBTQ community the right to choose partners according to their
gender preference and orientation for marriage, still has much limitations that needs to be
addressed. The analysis found the problem to be the assumption that the old ideas of having
only two parents apply in the changing world. People are now becoming more flexible when
it comes to spousal and family relationships and children often has legal parents as well as
their biological parents, who are sharing a harmonious life and taking the responsibility
together. Thus, amending the policy in incorporate these changes will ensure that people both
of the same sex marriage and heterosexual marriage are able to manage their families better.

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References
Marriage Equality (2012) | Australian Human Rights Commission. Humanrights.gov.au.
(2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/lgbti/marriage-equality-2012.
Kolstee, J., & Hopwood, M. (2016). The Impacts of Marriage Equality and Marriage Denial
on the Health of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual People [pdf]. Retrieved 20 March 2020,
from http://www.aph.gov.au›DocumentStore.
Same-Sex Marriage: Global Comparisons. Council on Foreign Relations. (2020). Retrieved
20 March 2020, from https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/same-sex-marriage-global-
comparisons.
Gay Marriage Around the World. Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project.
(2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/gay-
marriage-around-the-world/.
Australian Government: Attorney General's Department. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020,
from https://www.ag.gov.au/marriageequality.
Perales, F., Bouma, G., & Campbell, A. (2019). Religion, support of equal rights for same-
sex couples and the Australian national vote on marriage equality. Sociology of
Religion, 80(1), 107-129.
Roos, O. I., & Mackay, A. (2019). A Shift in the United Nations Human Rights Committee's
Jurisprudence on Marriage Equality: An Analysis of Two Recent Communications
from Australia. UNSWLJ, 42, 747.

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Perales, F., & Campbell, A. (2017). Who supports equal rights for same-sex couples?
Evidence from Australia.
Beutler, D., & Fenech, M. (2018). An Analysis of the Australian Government's Jobs for
Families Child Care Package: The Utility of Bacchi's WPR Methodology to Identify
Potential Influences on Parents’ Childcare Choices. Australasian Journal of Early
Childhood, 43(1), 16-24.
Lindblom, E. (2017). Reporting on Gender Equality and Diversity: A Discourse Analysis of
the GRI Framework for Sustainability Reporting.
Larsson, O. (2018). Poststructural policy analysis–a guide to practice.
Van Aswegen, J., Hyatt, D., & Goodley, D. (2019). A critical discourse problematization
framework for (disability) policy analysis. Qualitative Research Journal.
Pmc.gov.au. (2018). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from
https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/religious-freedom-submissions/14948.pdf.
Aihw.gov.au. (2018). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from
https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/61521da0-9892-44a5-85af-857b3eef25c1/aihw-
aus-221-chapter-5-5.pdf.aspx.