Recognition of overseas same-sex marriages progresses

Recognition of overseas same-sex marriages progresses
Image: The Australian Senate heard an inquiry into intersex issues for the first time ever this year.

SAME-sex couples legally married under overseas laws shouldn’t have to “leave their marriages at the customs gate,” according to a new bill progressing through Federal Parliament.

The bill, which was introduced to the Senate last week by South Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, calls for the Marriage Act 1961 to be amended to allow for the official recognition of same-sex marriages legally performed under the jurisdiction of other nations.

With Labor support, the bill has now been sent to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee for further consideration.

Hanson-Young said the bill’s progress brought reform one step closer.

“With more and more countries passing marriage equality laws, Australia is becoming increasingly isolated in the international community,” she said.

“Recognising international same-sex marriages will mean that gay Australians who wed overseas won’t have to leave their marriages at the customs gate.”

The move comes just weeks before same-sex couples can legally start to wed at Britain’s consulates in Australia following the recent legalisation of gay marriage in England and Wales.

Australian Marriage Equality National Director Rodney Croome said many people would be “outraged” when couples legally wed under UK law are “unwed the moment they step outside the consulate and back onto Australian soil.”

Croome encouraged couples legally married overseas to tell their stories of the “hurt and harm” caused by not having their relationships recognised at home.

“We will also be encouraging researchers and decision-makers from countries with marriage equality to detail the positive impacts the reform has had, and to confirm that none of the dire predictions of marriage equality opponents have come to pass,” he said.

You May Also Like

15 responses to “Recognition of overseas same-sex marriages progresses”

  1. The move to ‘recognise overseas SSM’ is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent a[nother] national discussion on whether to redefine ‘marriage’. The international ‘marriages’ would be recognised here as ‘civil unions’ with all the same rights as married Australians.

    I think it is another cheap stunt from a fundamentally flawed political initiative. Redefining any word to control public opinion is anti-freedom and tearing down a biology-based institution is no way to improve perception of homosexual relationships.

  2. In 2014, why are we still debating marriage equality?

    Just allow it already for goodness sake!

    The UK*, NZ, Canada, 59% of the states in the USA, Portugal, Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Iceland, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, New Caledonia all have marriage equality!!!!!!

    *Not including Northern Ireland!

    • Because this cleverly branded political group won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

      Your argument is both anti-democratic and anti-sovereignty. The issue was defeated in parliament in recent years, and just because another country redefined ‘marriage’ doesn’t mean we have to follow suit.

  3. Intelligent conversation from “Christian” (a misnomer) !
    It’s obvious that he is himself the epitome of all he detests (a “hate filled bigot”).

  4. Same-sex marriage does not bring equality to relationships. On the contrary, it has divided family members, particularly children who are separated from birth mother and father, when those marriages do not last. It has created a situation that originality has no status. I would have thought this position important to individuals, no less for the children found in this predicament. What is being achieved here, does not match the rhetoric of politicians who insist there is equality in same-sex families. No discerning person would agree with the latter part of this statement.

  5. So does that also mean, if this is passed, Muslims legally married to children as young as 6 yrs, their marriage will be recognised here if they immigrate to Australia or polygamy will also be accepted, if they have several wives and married in a country where it is legal?

    Where is it going to stop? You might be thinking that would never happen but we thought same sex marriage would never be recognised and yet here we are.

  6. There is no good reason to deny that we must keep evolving until an adult, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, monogamy or polyamory, race, or religion is free to marry any and all consenting adults. The limited same-gender freedom to marry is a great and historic step, but is NOT full marriage equality, because equality “just for some” is not equality. Let’s stand up for EVERY ADULT’S right to marry the person(s) they love. Get on the right side of history!

    • Mr Pullman is trying to interpret a ‘right to marry’ as meaning ‘the right to put the label “marriage” on any relationship’. I think it disrespectful to those that value the current definition of marriage.

      Everyone is subject to the same restrictions on ‘marriage’, its just that some don’t want to get married. Genuine progress would be to invent new institutions that can grow in familiarity and recognition.