Greens urge conscience vote on same-sex marriage
The Greens have asked the Liberal and Labor parties to permit their senators to exercise a conscience vote when a move to allow same-sex marriage comes before the Senate today.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is to push an amendment to the equality reforms omnibus bill to make the Marriage Act gender-neutral.
This is an important matter of conscience on which all Senators should be granted a free vote,” she said
Both Labor and Liberal have trumpeted their commitment to removing discrimination against same-sex couples in Commonwealth law. However, the Marriage Act has been a glaring omission from the suite of bills that will bring us into a new age of equality for same-sex couples.
Recent polls have shown that the majority of Australians support same-sex marriage -“ it’s time for the parliament’s actions to reflect that.
John – sorry to tell break it to you, but that’s exactly what democracy means.
James, Democracy doesn’t equal “majority rules”. The Californians are objecting to the actual vote – not the result. They are claiming that the proposition should never have gone ahead. Imagine we voted on whether we wanted women to vote and we voted it down! There’d be uproar in the streets, even from women who don’t like voting!
Actually, I take back what I said before. There’s no point voting on this matter when people won’t accept the results of the vote. In the past fortnight, California, Arizona and Florida voted to “ban gay marriage” and a lot of self interest groups can’t accept the results. Since the combined population of these three states totals about 60 million people, they can hardly blame George Bush, Sarah Palin, or a church or two for the results.
Chris – you appear to be posting the same comment in a number of threads.
Why am I so not surprised that it would be Oliver of all contributors to this forum who would support the views of James the homophobe and religious nutter!!
Oliver (Hitler wasn’t a bad person just misunderstood)supporting the views of James (most people don’t hate gay people its just their sexual acts that they find revolting )!!!!
Clearly (misinformed) Oliver I base my accusation of homophobia towards James not based on his jaundiced and prejudiced view of gay marriage alone but on his frequent anti gay equality posts on this site.
Oliver , on a personal level I agree with you about marriage .I agree it is outdated and restrictive and in most cases doomed to failure . This issue however transcends my personal opinion on the institution of marriage.. this issue is about human rights.Gay and lesbian people should have exactly the same rights as straight people and that includes the right to marry their same sex partner if they so desire . No more rights than straight people and certainly no less!!
On the issue of human rights in this post election Obama
world GAY IS THE NEW BLACK…we will never give up until we
get our human rights despite the Olivers and James of this world .
If you read James’ comments carefully, he does have some valid points. Just because a person doesnt agree with Gay Marriage it doesnt mean they are “Homophobic” A Homophobic person as far as Im concerned has an irrational fear of anything Homosexual in any way, they also fear aspects of Heterosexuality or just sex in General. Civil Unions, Great! But Marriage is just outdated. Even some straight Females would agree that the whole Fairy tale, white dress, ready to be subservient life is extremely outdated.
James-¦you homophobe what are you doing on this site you fool
you as a self declared ‘straight person -˜are happy to accept rights that are denied others because they are gay. This is a human rights issue pure and simple . GAY AND LESBIAN PEOPLE WANT AND DESERVE EXACTLY THE SAME RIGHTS AS STRAIGHT PEOPLE..100% NO EXCEPTIONS!
james surely there is a hillsong site you can hang around..or the daily telegraph where you can preach your twaddle to the ignorant..you will get nowhere here.It appears you get off on hanging around gay sites-¦?!
James when Howards Liberal consertive party changed the marriage act to exclude same-sex couples he also changed it so that hetrosexual couples who for instance decided to have a civil union in New Zealand, then there union is not reconised in federal law here in Australia despite other countries who will reconise it. So when Howard changed the marriage act, it did not just afect same-sex couples it also affects hetrosexual couples who have taken part in a civil union overseas. So is that not discrimination then James ?
I would like the people of Australia to have a vote on this matter. This would put an end to this matter, one way or another, once and for all.
But having said that, I don’t see where the discrimination exists in the Marriage Act. The Act applies equally to all people over the age of 18.
On the subject of same-sex marriage, this video re Prop 8 in California is worth a look:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27652443#27652443
One has to wonder if this ‘amendment’ is little more than political grandstanding by the Greens? Worse still, will it mean the rest of the legislation is help up yet again because there is no way this will get through. Isn’t it about time we learnt some patience? One step at a time and we will get what we want … politics is about playing a game … unfortunately we don’t set the rules for how the game is played.