Saturday’s decision by the Australian Labor Party to include marriage equality in it’s party platform was a bittersweet one.
The recognition of same-sex relationships in the party’s official policy is indeed a momentus step. It is just a shame Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s cop-out conscience vote decision also got enough support.
So where does this leave the LGBTI community? And what should we do next?
There are no guarantees with a conscience vote — and the fact that Tony Abbott is steadfastly refusing to allow Coaltion MPs a conscience vote on the matter means any vote under the status quo is guaranteed to fail.
But if there are any lessons to be learnt from the marriage equality journeys of other countries, they centre on maintaining the pressure and taking a doggedly unrelenting approach to the fight.
While more than 140,000 marriage equality supporters may have signed GetUp!’s marriage equality petition, and more than 10,000 people marched on the ALP National Conference on Saturday — all that is now history.
The reality is we have only won the first battle of a much larger fight and it is too early to pack away our rainbow flags and head home.
IN PICS: December 3 marriage equality rally
The ongoing letters and meetings with local MPs must continue. And now more than ever we need to call on our friends, family and supporters to join in those activities.
We must also prepare ourselves for the tactics of our opponents, especially those who have shown themselves willing to put their manners to one side and lower the battle to gutter level, because history has shown us that the closer we get to victory, the more vicious and morally corrupt they will become.
VIDEO: December 3 marriage equality rally
If Saturday’s rally proved anything, it is that marriage equality is something we as a community care deeply about, albeit for a variety of reasons, and one we are essentially united on.
What we now must do is harness, develop and nurture that sense of unity and continue to march forward to victory.
Besides marriage we also need to fight for inclusion under federal and various state anti discrimination laws; where we don’t have it already. By not including sexual orientation/preference under anti discrimination laws it sends a message to employers and other employees that it is OK to discriminate against us and that they can do so with impunity.
Like Scott says; we’ve won the first battle; but there are many more to come. And the pressure must never let up until we regarded as fully equal as anything less than full equality is still second best.
It is important remember that we are in the fight of our life. Mardi-Gras is stripping the words Gay and Lesbian out of the event. The Liberal/Naitonal Party, in Victoria, have stripped us from important parts of the Equal Opportunity Act in that State, banning us from thousands of government funded jobs due to our birth. Already Hillsong Happy Clapper Peter Costello, has started an attack on us in his foul opinion pieces in The Age. There is a campaign to diminish all we have worked so hard to achieve. Labor is still proposing to sink our inclusion into the Marriage Act with a conscience vote. The Prime Minister, the leader of the Labor Party, is desperately lying saying Labor has ended all discrimination.
The battle is not just about Marriage, it is about keeping us in the State Equal Opportunity Acts, and including us in the Federal Equal Opportunity Act. The importance of these acts determines how organizations and governments can treat us. Presently Labor, Liberal, and National Party all strongly advocate us against getting these fundamental protections.
At least we have the Greens still fighting to end discrimination, but it will take our collective efforts to keep up the pressure, and remind people of the many other areas of discrimination apart from Marriage. Blogging on forums, doing letter drops of 100 of your neighbours, calling talkback radio, chatting on facebook, and talking about the discrimination will remind people that Labor, Liberal, and the National Party are trying to turn back the clock.