Australia: New South Wales Parliament calls on federal government for equal marriage laws
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Slowly but surely, we will get there…
So much love and gratitude to all the tireless fighters in this campaign.
My home state in Australia, now let’s hope the same marriage equality motion passes in the NSW Lower House as well!
A very much symbolic act. But this symbolism is to be clearly seen by the politically cowardly, and those who engage in bigotry for political expedience, and tell them that their position is untenable.
Equality down under huh? lol
They will probably beat us to it at this rate. Which here is almost glacial.
Those politicians blocking equality legislation in Australia will be remembered as bad people by history.
Absolutely meaningless. The Australian federal government doesn’t recognize same sex relationships on any level. Gays should boycott Australia until they clean their act up!
Not strictly true…the Fed Govt recognises same-sex and hetero de facto relationships equally, and de facto and married couples are equal under the law, so the whole institution of marriage itself in Australia is pretty much purely symbolic.
Yes, this gesture in the NSW Senate is “meaningless”, but in these times of vicious public debate, with both Gillard and Abbott insisting on embarrassing themselves and doing nothing for the mental health of the queer population, it is a least a little reasurring to know not everyone in politics is so full of hate.
The law in Australia specifically bars any recognition of same sex marriages, and there’s no federally recognized way to declare any kind of union between same sex couples. There’s also no recognition of overseas same-sex relationships.
Yep. What I was addressing was that you said the govt “doesn’t recognize same sex relationships on any level”. Obviously that wasn’t quite what you actually meant, so point taken :)
The lack of federal recognition for state-formalised same-sex unions, and the overseas marriage/union/partnership issue, are indeed definite problems.
Sorry to be negative about this, but the Upper House has only proposed the legislation – it still has to get through the NSW Lower House and that will be next to impossible, It is controlled by Catholics, conservatives and Christians of other persuasions. The Premier has only allowed a conscience vote on the issue because he knows the legislation will fail. At any rate, it has flushed out a number of anti-gay senators on both sides of the chamber. I hope their constituents take note! As I have said before, it will take abut another 8 years (I said 10, 2 years ago) before we have gay marriage in Aus.