Lot's Wife Edition 5 2015

8
POLITICS
BY CASSIE
SPRY
Marriage Equality
Content Warning: Suicide, physical and
sexual violence
Approximately 10% of Australians experience same-sex attraction
and yet this 10% of the population face discrimination by the
public and by the law.
We are denied basic rights and privileges by our country purely
based on the person we love.
Marriage equality has received a lot of media coverage lately
with international successes and the recent bills to amend
the Marriage Act.
Many have criticised Labor’s recent bill as a knee-jerk
reaction to Ireland’s referendum with some believing Bill
Shorten is just looking to score political points. But with
the recent US Supreme Court decision, there is mounting
pressure on the Australian Government to pass an
amendment allowing marriage between same-sex couples.
The referendum in Ireland was a landmark victory for
LGBTIQ rights with the majority of people in a largely Catholic
nation voting for marriage equality. This had a huge effect
world-wide and has encouraged Australian politicians to
reintroduce an amendment for marriage equality.
Some Australians believe that a referendum could allow
marriage equality to become law with over 62 per cent of
Australians supporting marriage equality, but unfortunately,
marriage is not in our constitution so the best way for us to
achieve equality is still through the parliament.
Politicians are more open to legalising love as a result of
the referendum, with Bill Shorten saying it had inspired him
to act.
The Labor Party has increased their support for marriage
equality since it became party policy in 2011, with a sizeable
part of their opposition to the Liberal Party now based around
this issue.
However, does the Labor Party just support marriage
equality and LGBTIQ rights when it benefits them?
Labor supported the 2004 amendment to the Marriage
Act, which changed the definition of marriage to specify
that it was between a man and a woman and preventing the
acknowledgement of overseas same-sex marriages. While
this did follow Labor party policy at the time, they have only
half-heartedly supported marriage equality since.
Why didn’t Labor change the law while they were in office?
They didn’t support the 2010 Greens bill to amend the
Marriage Act and even when party policy changed in 2011 they
didn’t seriously push for the marriage equality campaign.
In 2012, when another amendment to allow samesex
marriage was introduced to parliament many Labor
members voted against the bill even though they had a free
vote.
The Prime Minister at the time, Julia Gillard, was opposed
to same-sex marriage and it is likely that this could have
scared other politicians into following her and reducing the
number of ‘yes’ votes.
In the last federal election, Kevin Rudd did make marriage
equality part of his platform and said they would allow a
conscience vote. He stated that he personally supported
marriage equality.
This was a back-flip from his stance in the lead-up to the
2007 election, where he said that he believed "marriage was
between a man and a woman."
It is of course possible that he truly changed his view on
this matter, but the timing of this support suggests that he
was primarily seeking votes.
It’s common knowledge that politicians offer voters
incentives to vote for them during election time often in the
form of promised tax cuts or more benefits; this was just
Kevin Rudd’s incentive for LGBTIQ voters and supporters of
marriage equality.
Regardless of whether it was Kevin Rudd’s sincere belief or
not, he exploited people’s sexuality for his own gain.
That’s not to say that people would not welcome marriage
equality in Australia if the politicians’ intentions were less
than pure, but politicising equal love could cause issues for
LGBTIQ people down the road.
Many other issues specific to the queer community that
should be simple matters may be blocked by politicians for
point scoring or because it does not affect the majority of
Australians.
This is another step down the road of politicians
withholding rights until the opportune moment in order to
maintain their power, at the expense of ordinary citizens.
The US Supreme Court decision to legalise same-sex
marriage overruling state laws has been monumental worldwide.