Straight push for marriage

Straight push for marriage

Around 5000 people turned out for marriage rights across the country to mark the start of the National Year of Action — but the big news is many of them were heterosexual.

Australian Marriage Equality’s Alex Greenwich said there were around 1000 people at the start of Sydney’s rally at Town Hall, but once supporters started marching along George St, the public left the pavements to join in.

“You could tell by their appearance there was a big mix of people,” Greenwich told Sydney Star Observer.

“There were mums there. There were straight as well as gay people. There was a huge age range. It was a diverse mix of people.”

Greenwich estimated at the march’s high point another 500 people had joined. Despite the negative verdict of the Senate inquiry into the Greens marriage bill and the Government threatening a veto over civil unions legislation in the ACT, the rally kept to a positive vibration.

“There wasn’t any negativity, there was a lot of hope in the crowd, and just so much energy and support for same-sex marriage,” Greenwich said.

Another 2500 turned out in Melbourne, with an estimated 300 in Brisbane. Around 200 gathered in Adelaide, while Perth had a showing of 150 and Lismore around 100.

Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) co-convenor Emilia Lawonski said the rally was a strong way to start the planned National Year of Action.

“This is the first year-long campaign of its kind in Australia’s history. We need to keep up the pressure on Rudd and his bigoted colleagues if we are to achieve full equality,” Lawonski said.

“This year is about taking our future into our own hands. We will put up the strongest fight ever seen for full equal marriage rights. If we don’t, conservative politicians will continue to trample on our basic human rights for as long as we allow it.”

Saturday’s events garnered a range of press coverage, both before and afterwards.

One day before the rally the president of the United Faculty of Theology at Melbourne University wrote in favour of civil unions in the pages of The Age.

The Rev Andrew McGowan, an Anglican minister, suggested neither civil celebrants nor priests should be responsible for creating legal contracts of marriage, but should restrict themselves to performing rituals of marriage or commitment, whether religious or secular.
“Couples should contract marriages, and other unions, in a purely civil setting, and then be able to seek appropriate forms of celebration — if any — for their needs.”

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14 responses to “Straight push for marriage”

  1. Both Spain and Portugal are very religious countries as Catholic and guess what:

    THEY BOTH HAVE SAME SEX MARRIAGE!!!!!

  2. Rubbish Mikhail- middle and upper class people in Australia are more accepting of GLBT people because they are better educated than working class people, and capitalist societies have been faster to protect the rights of GLBT people than socialist countries.

  3. I beg to differ, Mikhail. Religions are very much to blame.

    Did you read the Hansard transcript of the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009 senate inquiry? Conservative Baptist Senator Guy Barnett and his religious Senate cronies were in fine form, doing everything they could to malign gay and lesbian couples as undeserving and incapable of marriage and parenthood. They sneered at the testimony of equality advocates and fawned over the conservative religious witnesses something shocking, who, it should be noted, formed the bulk if not entirety of opposition to the Bill.

    So religion is not SOLELY but clearly SUBSTANTIALLY to blame for the gay marriage ban. Indeed, there is a view among progressive Catholics — as an ex-Catholic, I realise that sounds like such an oxymoron — that *secular* law (the amended Marriage Act) served to protect the Church from same-sex marriage because at its core, the *sacrament* of marriage is a mutual covenant shared between two people over which the Church has no actual authority to deny and in the absence of a secular law restricting it to between a man and a woman, the Church would not have had a legal basis for refusing same-sex marriage.

    Australians for Separation of Church & State
    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54429760859

  4. Please, don’t be fooled into believing that is religions that are to blame for the gay marriage ban.

    Yes, they provide the rhetoric and grab headlines, but there is just no substance in relgious homophobia. No one takes it serious in the public, other than the 25% of Australians who hate gay marriage and want gay people to die.

    The answer lies in the rich and powerful who both to oppress the working class.
    They did this in the 1960s with the women’s liberation movement. Women were tricked into believe that their enemy was men; feminists came up with man-hating ‘society of women’ theories. This was all a trap to prevent women and men from realising that they have a common enemy, the rich and powerful.

    This is the exact same thing. We can bash and smear religion all we like, but in the end it’s not them who benefit from homophobia.
    It’s a key that gay rights campaigners come up with substancial political understand about why the rich and powerful enjoy homophobia to exist in society.

    (I went to the Melbourne Equal Love rally on November 28. I took some photos of it. On my blog, I wrote up a report on how the rally went for my personally: internationalannual.blogspot.com)

  5. Australia has reconfirmed itself as one of the the backwaters of human rights.It NO longer deserves the right to claim it is a fighter for fairness and equality.We as Australians should be ASHAMED to show our faces on the world stage.We as G+L Australians are SECOND CLASS citizens,not unlike the blacks in South Africa or the USA not so long ago.SHAME on you fellow Australians who have voted and agreed with this decision.How absolutely appalling.

  6. You know, the only reason why I knew this was on is because of the great marketing of information. The stall at UTS, the posters and not forgetting the mention of members in the public in the MX. I wonder if it was the same for places like Adelaide and Brisbane where their numbers were only in the hundreds?

    I also wanted to say that I worked a 10 hour shift the night before which finished at 6 am that morning. I had another one starting at 8pm the night of the rally. I believe this is such an important issue and stand that needs to be taken that it was worth sacrificing the sleep for.

  7. I know the problem:

    “The trouble is that the Labor Party [run by the churchie bigot Kevin Rudd] have no balls on legalizing gay marriage here in Australia – they still see it a “political suicide”!!

  8. Not so long ago people advertised for “No Catholics Need Apply” in the job sections of news papers. In those days children who were not Catholic were not allowed to play with those that were.

    Thankfully Australia has moved on from all that. Gay Marriage is one the last great Human Rights battles to be fought of our generation. We must break down the barriers about Gay Marriage. Get armed with the facts and ring the radio when people from the Christian Right lie, write to your local member and contine do it until he or she understands you are serious. Ask people not to vote for a political party that discriminates against you.

    Recently my partner of 9 years and I moved to a country area that normally supports Liberals. We have began to educate people through letters to the Editor in the local paper. People did not know John Howard changed the definition of Marriage to exclude us, or that pre modern Europe and Imperial China has well documented gay marriage. Many people also did not know that the current Pope was a member of Hitler Youth, and over 15,000 homosexuals were killed by these people. Bad mouth the ALC as a bunch of nutters that do not represent Australia or Christian values.

    We have a battle that we will win by all doing our part no matter how small. I have found many hetrosexual people now offer support or complain if they find something homophobic in our area. Old ladys even keep newspaper cuttings for us.

    When people are educated about Gay Marriage, I find they look at those against it, as though they are stuck in that time in History when Catholics were discriminated against. They think those against it are just Evil and nasty. Many hetrosexual people are helping make a big difference and are fighting for us. Although we have lost a battle recently, the war is not over. We have time on our side. It is not as though we are going to wakeup as hetrosexuals is it? Do not give up but take heart from the many people around Australia and the world that support us. Even in our darkest days we should find strength and comfort from this.

  9. what is the matter with this govermenent ??! rudd is failing us on some of the very promises we elected him in for…. Its time australia caught up with the rest of the world

  10. while ever we have two major political powers pandering to the right wing majority we won’t achieve the change we want. The rally sends a message and is a good thing. The way policy in politics is heading our hope is for a greater majority of greens senators and will make it harder to oppose. I am not a politician but I do believe in might Bob Brown

  11. Im so with you nathan, its just wrong that they will take our money but not give us the same wrights!!!! what a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  12. Peter,you are so right!! Penny Wong should have been there( As you don’t have to be blind to see that she drinks from the furry cup) spear heading this campaign,shame on her for not showing her face!

  13. I am a homosexual I believe we should have same marriage rights as straigh, mixed race etc, How can the goverment not reconise these marriages, yet they will cut centre link payment if u r in a gay relationship as they do for straight….. that is a contradiction and a half….. 1 hand your saying you do not agree with gay/lesbian marriages but yr happy to stop the money if they r in a relationship….. u accept 1 you hav e to accept the other……. wake up and smeel the roses we r in the year 2009 not 1950s

  14. What a DISGRACE AUSTRALIA is to the world.A TOTAL SHAMEFUL,DISGRACE.There are so many countries that have passed gay marriage laws years ago.People should be boycotting the G+L MARDI GRAS,it obviously makes no difference.And as for dear Penny Wong and all our other G+L politicians in the Labour and Liberal parties what a DISGRACE you are to the G+L community.Time to get on the plane and move to somewhere a bit more G+L friendly I think (and spend our money there too)