POLL: How do you feel about the High Courts decision to strike down ACT’s same-sex marriage legislation

3 responses to “POLL: How do you feel about the High Courts decision to strike down ACT’s same-sex marriage legislation”

1. Anyone remotely familiar with the Australian federal Constitution would have foreseen the outcome. I find it incredible that some legal minds worked under the illusion that any state or territory legislation on same-sex marriage could have circumvented the clear provisions of the Constitution. That this was a unanimous decision supported by one openly lesbian judge and a 78er only demonstrates the utter foolishness of this course of action.

2. @Adam Carr: Hardly foolish and misguided. We needed one state or territory to become the patsy, to legally clarify a few of the points that were grey up until the high court ruling last week when their efforts predictably went down in flames. That has happened. We’re now far closer to national legislation than we would have been otherwise.

3. This was the correct decision and a progressive one, because returning to the pre-1960 regime of different marriage laws in different jurisdictions is thoroughly retrograde. The marriage equality campaign was foolish and misguided to pursue the mirage of state/territory legislation, which was never going to succeed and is not genuine marriage equality anyway. This ruling clarifies that there is only one pathway to marriage equality, and that is by electing a federal Parliament that will amend the Marriage Act.