Marriage anger not going away
Same-sex marriage advocates will rally under the I have a dream mural in Newtown on International Human Rights Day next Wednesday as part of a protest involving almost 20 other countries.
Australian Marriage Equality and Community Action Against Homophobia will host the Sydney rally following a similar protest in Melbourne two weeks ago opposing the Australian gay marriage ban and the recent ban in California.
The issue has gone international. The first rallies that will happen will happen in Australia and will go around the world, organiser Connor Montgomery said.
The fact that the Americans could get 30,000 people out in three days after [California’s] Proposition 8 banned gay marriage, that’s pretty amazing. San Francisco and Sydney are sister cities, we should answer the call.
Organisers were unmoved by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s stated opposition to marriage equality.
I think they say a lot of things. Thirty years ago, we didn’t have the same rights we have today, people even thought beating gay people up was okay, Montgomery said.
AME’s Alex Greenwich said a lot of gay people were frustrated with the continuing inequality.
This is a way to get our message across to the community that we should be fighting for true equality and seeking reasons for why we don’t have it yet. It’s great that those recent [federal] reforms passed, but we should have been entitled to them anyway and it’s not enough.
we have enough drama immediately ahead of us with the equality matter that will leave thousands of gay social service recipients in deeper poverty. Worst might well be the hiv boys, who already just exist on soup kitchen handouts.
Forget the word marriage guys. That seems to be the issue at hand. Let’s stand united on legal recognition. We so want to have recognition and go through with it with our friends at home here in Old Bar, rather than rushing off to the UK Embassy in Sydney, behind closed doors.
chris – thanks for the advice, but I won’t hold my breath and I suggest you don’t either.
James it does’nt matter how many times ‘you get down on your knees’ and look skywards all your wishful thinking is not going to stop gay marriage- it is unstoppable and is a sign of society evolving- get used to it !
as a reply to what vic had said, we may both have different accents, but between america and australia (and the rest of the world) we are all gay, if we are able to bring about gay equality in one country, the change would reverberate throughout the world; marraiage equality is one step, it just gives us a chance to be like heterosexual couples whom little everyday will divorce, in fact every year 60% of marriages (this being heterosexual) always end in divorce. So to the government, if heterosexuals cant always do it, we have a good chance to…
Well, James, perhaps you haven’t noticed – but we’re not Californians or Americans for that matter. We’re Australian and we’ll fight our own battle on our own soil.
I DO want formal recognition. But I am not convinced we need it to be inclusion in the marriage act. I want to be equal, but not the same. Civil unions would get me out to a rally (but not led by the CAAH and International Socialist)
Californians have voted twice on this issue, both times rejecting gay marriage. Maybe it’s homosexuals who need to get with the times.
I agree with Shiraz. It’s really hard to take this mob seriously when they support things like beats or hijack same sex marraige rallys to promote the socialist organisations and rant and rave about other issues such as Cuba and Venezuala.
I support the cause but I cant and I wont support CAAH. They’re nothing but a complete embarrassment.
Peter. Are you fighting against recognition of same sex relationships? Or are you fighting against the general institution and construction of marriage?
IMO the quest for recognition of same sex marriage is an essential part of equal rights and social justice.
Nowhere have I seen anyone campaigning or insisting on requiring couples to marriage. What I have seen is lots of people who are working for equal rights and social justice campaigning for the right to marry. None of those groups appears to require same sex couples to marry.
I do believe that Peter has it right about the pandering to religion-based social constructions.
The ‘religious’ do not have a consistent position on same sex relationships. There are, sadly, exemptions built in to the anti-discrimination laws of NSW that give ‘religious’ groups an exemption from the laws. In some sense that’s ok, as people should (IMO) be able to believe as they wish. My complaint is that why should the taxpayer fund these organisations that discriminate. Take away their money … remove their tax exemptions … make them pay their own way to continue their bias and bigotry …
At 62, and with almost fifty years of scintillating widespread possibly unsurpassed gay experience,I simply fail to unerstand what significance gay “marriage’ has for homosexuals other than to pander to tired, failed and destructive heterosexual religion-based beliefs.
What happened to the CAAH vigil at your local dunny?