Union to vote on marriage equality
The Australian Services Union is asking its members to make their views known on same-sex marriage so the union can endorse a formal position on the issue.
ASU NSW and ACT branch secretary Sally McManus emailed all ASU members across Australia on March 29, seeking their opinions.
“The ASU Executive which is made up of elected delegates from all the industries which make up the ASU, recently confirmed its support for equal rights for all and its opposition to discrimination,” McManus wrote.
“At the same time [the] Executive determined that it was time for ASU members to endorse a formal policy position for our union on marriage equality for gays and lesbians.
“The ASU … Executive has decided that the best way to allow the broadest possible number of members to be involved in this debate is by asking members to vote on this issue.”
The vote is being conducted through www.SurveyMonkey.com and closes on April 8.
Australian Marriage Equality national convenor Alex Greenwich said it was great to see another union adopting a formal position on the issue.
“This is a great step for the ASU to be taking,” Greenwich said.
“It shows they want to reflect the views of their membership at the next ALP National Conference, and I am sure they are supportive of marriage equality.”
Greenwich called on other unions to do the same.
“The unions control a large chunk of the votes at the conference and we’ll be engaging with all unions represented there to get them on side,” he said.
Other unions that have already adopted a position on the issue include the Australian Workers Union, all of whose delegates will vote in favour of marriage equality at the conference, while the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) has pledged to use all of its votes to oppose marriage equality despite an internal campaign in support of it by SDA members.
Greenwich said the Maritime Union of Australia and the education unions were also big supporters.
“They understand this is an issue of human rights and they have a long history of fighting for people’s rights,” Greenwich said.
Greenwich encouraged anyone who was a union member to let their union know they supported marriage equality in the lead-up to the ALP National Conference beginning December 2.
colin
My local Anglican Bishop said simply ” the Church does not own marriage, it never has.” He advocates for Same-Sex Marriage and the rights of all in the GLBTI community, as do millions of good Christians around the world.
There are distinctions to be made about marriage. There is the legal instrument, the contract of marriage, and there is the ritual. Each culture and religion has their own ceremony of marriage. For example my husband was recently reading a book on gay samurai weddings. The ceremony of Marriage is distinct from the legal definition of marriage. It used to be that is was no persons business other then the couple getting married. They had family and friends attend and usually did some sort of ritual and that was it, they were married. No Julia Gillard or Catholic Church telling them what to do. Until recent history, the government did not even recognize aboriginal marriages.
Our problem is the government has taken this right away from us. Big brother now regulates marriage. It does not recognize the ritual of marriage, and does not recognize an Anglican or Catholic weddings. It uses Marriage as a legal instrument. What matters is the contract is signed with a government regulated witness (eg a celebrant), that is all. There are over 1080 pieces of legislation that discriminate in favour of married couples over non married couples. The new argument about going private, and having your own contract, ignores all the legislations that discriminate in favour or married couples.
Over a million Australians have had a Civil Marriage, a marriage with no Church involvement at all. You hire a celebrant, sign off and that is it. Do it in a park, at your house, or on the beach, it is up to you and your beloved. The real question is does the government have a right to have legislation that discriminates in favour of married couples, and then deny you access to the protection of Marriage simply because they do not like you or your partner. Married couples should never be discriminated in favour of non married couples. This effects not just the GLBTI community, but all Australians.
In contrast to Federal Labor in Australia, the conservative government in England is advocating for Same-Sex Marriage. In time, politicians against this right here will be seen as no different to those who stood for inter-racial marriage, and keeping the White Australia Policy. Religion was used back then but in the end we all saw it was about hate. Gillard and Abbott are on the wrong side of history attempting to deny you government recognition of your marriage, and are increasingly being seen as haters, no different to other haters in our recent history.
I have been asked a few times lately what my point of view is on same sex marriage, by both straight and gay friends As part of the conversations I had, I realised that many people have what I think of as a ‘skewed’ idea of what marriage is all about.
Now why do I say that? Well it is not that I mean they have ideas about how a marriage might or might not work. The key thing that almost everyone seems to think is that ‘marriage’ is a religious act. Now even my ‘non-religious’ friends (some who did not get married in a church themselves) believe that the act of marriage is a religious thing!
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought a ‘marriage’ was in fact a ‘legal’ act, not a religious one. Yes, a lot of people choose to get married within a religious setting, such as in a church, but ultimately they sign a legal document that then legalises their wedding… in fact without this you are not really married in the eyes of the law.
Also a key point is that heterosexual couples are allowed to ‘get married’ in non-religious places, such as a garden, on a beach or even in a pub – where is the religion in that!? And yet they can still call it a ‘marriage’.
It is not good enough to say “but marriage is a religious act” as an argument, because that is not the entire truth, and besides non-religious heterosexuals being allowed to get married in a church simply makes a mockery of that argument.
I do agree however, that if the church does not want to allow same-sex marriages in their churches, then so be it, but they do not ‘own’ the copyright of marriage. I fundamentally believe that same-sex- partners should be allowed to get ‘married’ (be it in a garden, on a beach or in a pub) and call it just that. Marriage.
A ‘civil-partnership’ is not the same. If we call it something different, then it means something different. People know what the act of marriage means, what being married bestows on a relationship and the statement a couple make to their friends and family when they ‘get married’. We all know the importance of this. And no it is not the same when a couple make a civil declaration, it does not have the same gravitas and it certainly is not seen as ‘equal’ to a marriage by most people.
Until I can say “this is my husband” rather than “this is my civil partner” there will always be a disparate treatment and acceptance of same-sex partnerships