Labor Senator and Australia’s first openly-gay woman in Cabinet, Penny Wong, has labelled Prime Minister Tony Abbott the biggest “roadblock” in Australia’s fight for marriage equality, according to The Guardian.
This man? A roadblock to marriage equality? Surely not.
Wong also criticised the warped rhetoric and semantics currently featuring in anti-marriage equality campaigners’ debate, saying on Saturday:
“The sort of language and propositions from those who oppose marriage equality flick between illogical and outright offensive.
“I wish the standard of this debate would perhaps be a little better than suggesting that marriage equality will somehow lead to polygamy.”
Wong’s comments allude to LNP Senator Eric Abetz‘s commentary on the marriage equality debate this week – an impassioned op-ed claimed same sex marriage in Australia should only be legalised when it becomes legal in Asia, and suggested that same sex marriage could act as a gateway for legalising polygamy in the country. -_-
Adding to that sentiment today is Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who claimed Asia would see Australia’s legalisation of gay marriage as “decadent“, and said it would be problematic for Parliament to “pass a piece of legislation that said that a diamond is a square”.
“I didn’t notice Eric Abetz being stifled in any way. I never noticed Cory Bernardi being stifled in any way,” Penny Wong said on Saturday, in response to a question on her own “stifling” of the issue.
On Friday, a push for marriage equality to gain more traction came from within Abbott HQ, after Tony Abbott’s openly-gay sister Christine Forster called on the PM to allow ministers to decide on the issue via a conscience vote.
Watching a couple on what appears to be a terrible first coffee date at the table next to me. Dude is every precious self-involved writer.
— Anne Thériault (@anne_theriault) July 3, 2015
via The Guardian.
Lead image by Cole Bennetts via Getty.
