It’s been a pretty massive seven days around the world as far as marriage equality is concerned. Ireland made history with their landmark referendum. JK Rowling took the Westboro Baptist Church’s bigotry over gay marriage, chewed it up into a beautifully gummy spit ball, and aimed fire on Twitter. Charlie Pickering added to the debate. And Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek bit the bullet, and announced the introduction of a marriage equality bill in Parliament next week. Beyond that, Fairfax today reports that a nifty coalition between Labor and LNP MPs is brewing, with Liberal MP Warren Entsch potentially crossing party lines to throw his support behind the bill.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s openly gay sister, Christine Forster, appeared on Lateline last night with Tony Jones. Forster was adamantly optimistic of the historic bill passing Parliament sooner rather than later:
“I do expect it to happen this year. I think if it doesn’t happen this year, it will only be because of a procedural issue…I think it’ll be done and dusted by the end of this year.”
“To think that this reform comes under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott… I think it’s entirely appropriate that it would come under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott. At the end of the day I’m sure he will understand that this is good and fair for everybody and it will be great for Australia.”
