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After you’ve done all\u00a0the lobbying, it seems what\u00a0you have to do in Australia to achieve LGBTIQ equality, is wait.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
MARRIAGE\u00a0Equality will be legislated in Australia no sooner than 2019. I know many will fly into a rage about that assertion, but let\u2019s get real for a few moments: the current Coalition will never independently instigate a change to the Marriage Act<\/em>\u00a0allowing equal access to same-sex couples. Even this week, Malcolm Turnbull told us it’s a plebiscite or nothing<\/a>, and despite the fact that he has no money for a public vote, he means it.<\/p>\n
Before you lose your shit at me, you need to acknowledge that the majority of the Australian LGBTIQ community are okay with that. When the largest ever group of this demographic was recently polled on whether we\u2019d be happy to wait for another government to hold\u00a0a parliamentary vote instead of a plebiscite\u00a0almost 60 per cent of us said yes<\/a>.<\/p>\n
We killed the Coalition’s unpopular ‘ask the people’ approach<\/a>, but history tells us that pioneering same-sex equality law reform in Australia only ever occurs under Labor governments.<\/p>\n
From South Australia\u2019s decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1975; the first legislation recognising same-sex de-facto relationships in the Australian Capital Territory in 1994; the first same-sex adoptions in Western Australia in 2002; the federal amendment of 100 pieces of discriminatory federal legislation in 2009; the enabling of any adult to choose to identify as male or female in 2013, and the first same-sex marriages in the ACT in 2014 (overturned by the High Court less than a week later), the ALP can be relied on to get LGBTIQ equality started, eventually.<\/p>\n
The notion of \u201ceventually\u201d is the key. We read it often in the media, and I\u2019ve heard a hundred friends and pundits offer it as a panacea to tough times: \u201cEventually, it\u2019ll happen,\u201d they advise, probably wishing I\u2019d just shut up and stop reminding everyone that we still don\u2019t have federal civil unions for same-sex couples in this country, let alone marriage.<\/p>\n
But honestly, I accepted this unwelcome advice years ago. Why would any informed observer not, when we compare our lack of reform with the equality wins of our closest cultural and political allies?<\/p>\n
Marriage Equality passes in New Zealand’s parliament.<\/p><\/div>\n
Australia\u2019s decriminalisation of homosexuality lagged thirty years behind the United Kingdom\u2019s and Canada\u2019s, and a decade behind New Zealand\u2019s.<\/p>\n
All three of those nations passed civil unions over a decade ago, and same-sex marriage duly passed in all three – Canada in 2005, New Zealand in 2013 and the United Kingdom in 2014.<\/p>\n
After you’ve done all\u00a0the lobbying, it seems what\u00a0you have to do in Australia to achieve LGBTIQ equality, is wait.<\/p>\n
Some commentators\u00a0bravely attempt to name the date. I\u2019ve often quoted Guardian Australia journalist Gay Alcorn\u2019s courageous prediction that reform would arrive by 2014-2015<\/a>, but only because her remonstrations about being tired of the debate were delivered ten years after the start of the main game. Sorry you\u2019ve got marriage equality fatigue, Gay, but hopefully you joined the end of the queue and got someone to\u00a0share a pillow with you.<\/p>\n
Waiting\u00a0stinks, and\u00a0progressives don\u2019t like it, but\u00a0when you force a nation to wait, strange things happen.<\/p>\n
Waiting hijinks<\/h5>\n
This week has seen many\u00a0classic absurdist hijinks\u00a0that are the result of an immature Coalition putting the brakes on reform.<\/p>\n
Aussies are known to imbibe a few rounds at the pub whenever\u00a0there\u2019s time to kill, and this week the fermented amber beverage was put to good use in \u2018that\u2019 corporate video produced by the Bible Society of Australia.<\/p>\n
MPs Tim Wilson and Andrew Hastie debate marriage equality.<\/p><\/div>\n
In the absence of anything practical to do about marriage equality during the current political impasse, Coopers beers were raised by two Liberal Party MPs in the name of civil debate,\u00a0and merry hell was raised across the social media<\/a> in\u00a0the fallout.<\/p>\n
Many couldn\u2019t see the issue with (yet another) debate on reform that is already supported by the vast majority of Australians in any poll you\u2019d like to pick; but just as many raged at the flippancy of \u201ckeeping it light\u201d where delayed civil rights are concerned, and the attempts to fit the whole boring exercise\u00a0into a hashtag for marketing purposes.<\/p>\n
But I can understand why Tim Wilson MP needed some confected progress on marriage equality, because even he, with his enthusiasm\u00a0and the ear of the PM, cannot get Malcolm Turnbull to pick up any existing bill and vote on it\u00a0in parliament.<\/p>\n
Lobby groups are also coming to terms with the delays.<\/p>\n
You only have to look at and\/or participate in Mardi Gras to see what fun can be had while we wait for equality, and letting off steam collectively helps\u00a0many, but the event is no more or less sponsor-soaked than the Bible Society’s video, which is why\u00a0key\u00a0LGBTIQ lobby groups aren’t\u00a0pointing the finger at the Society or\u00a0the Liberal Party for forging a strategic alliance with Coopers Brewery: the bills have to be paid while the timeline for reform stretches out.<\/p>\n
Happy to wait<\/h5>\n
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