Voices of protest weaken

Many who attended this year’s Same-Sex Marriage National Day of Action would have been shocked by the dismal turn-out. Sydney’s march saw just 300 people get involved -” perhaps a fifth the size of 2007’s rally, and the smallest one to date.

Events in other capital cities saw reduced numbers also, with the combined efforts of community members resulting in just one story in a major newspaper -” though this may have been partly the fault of organisers, with media not contacted until very late in the game.

Disappointing too that other micro-parties’ involv-ement was not sought with the Socialist Alliance playing such a big role in the event. What about the Democrats, the Secular Party, or the Liberty and Democracy Party, all of whom have same-sex marriage platforms?

But getting back to it, why such a poor turn-out? Is GLBT Australia going cold on the right to marry? Personally, I think not, and here’s why:

For one, 2007’s event occurred during an election year when there was still hope we could sway Labor’s stance on the issue before Australians went to the polls.

For another, the Liberals were still in power, and we were yet to find out what sort of animal a Federal Labor Government would be after over a decade in the wilderness.

Half a year in we know better. We saw Federal Labor’s true colours when they threatened to crush the ACT’s civil unions scheme over the inclusion of official ceremonies and, from his statements as PM, we now know for certain that we’ll never see full equality in this country while Kevin Rudd leads the Labor Party.

In light of that it was inevitable that this year’s event was going to be smaller -” the hope just wasn’t there.

But it’s still vital that we persevere, even if we don’t plan on getting married ourselves, because experience overseas shows that once marriage or civil unions are won everything else becomes easier.

In the UK, as part of a raft of reforms following civil unions there, not even Catholic adoption agencies can refuse same-sex couples, and attacks on gays -” even relatively minor ones -” are now treated as the hate crimes that they are by both police and the media.

And our goal may be closer than it seems. The Australian Candidate Study for the 2007 election found 66.7 percent of Labor candidates were privately pro-same-sex marriage, with only 13.5 opposed. Continued pressure from the community and gains by the Greens may yet turn those private views into Government policy.