“Banging your head against a brick wall” is a phrase that was definitely invented for Australians who support marriage equality.
It’s time. It’s well past time. Ireland gets it. Bill Shorten and Christine Milne get it. Tanya Plibersek gets it. Tom Ballard gets it. Russell Brand gets it. Glenn Lazarus gets it. Scott Morrison doesn’t get it, but zero surprises there.
Here at Pedestrian we’ve written about marriage equality so many times that when Australia eventually DOES pass it, we’ll all be twiddling our thumbs until John Oliver does something funny again. (Kidding. Please don’t fire us.)
It’s getting old. When almost 70 percent of us support marriage equality in Australia, the fact that it STILL HASN’T HAPPENED is straight up infuriating. At some point, we just want to stop talking about it and just let whoever wants to get married get married. And divorced. And married again. Because who the fuck cares, this is 2015, and it should have happened a long, long time ago.
There’s two ways Australia could legalise gay marriage. The first is a successful vote on a same-sex marriage bill in Federal Parliament (which so far has failed three times).
The second option is a referendum. Journalist Nicholas Reece explains why a referendum would push forward marriage equality, but the cliff notes are as follows:
While a referendum would not be able to pass a law in favour of same-sex marriage, it could be used to get a clear, no bullshit answer on how many Australians support marriage equality, and then use that to kick start parliament into gear, where, even though many Liberal politicians support marriage equality privately, most are unwilling to risk their political standing by going up against the conservative block of MPs.
A Change.org petition is calling for just that: asking for Australians who believe in marriage equality to put their name where their mouth is, sign a petition, and get parliament to agree to a referendum.
“Tony Abbott believes that it’s the role of the Australian Parliament to decide on whether Australia should have equal marriage rights,” writes Brendon Walker, who started the petition. “What he fails to see, time and time again, is that we are a democratic nation. We can make our own decisions.”
“As of December 2014, there are 14,988,486 people registered to vote. If we were to hold a referendum, more than half of the country would need to vote yes. This means over 7,494,243 votes.”
“Can we have 7.5 million Australians raise their hand in favour of marriage equality for Australians?”
If the petition can attract 7.5 million signatures, it will be presented to Abbott’s Sydney office as proof that a referendum would pass.
While Tones is politically sticking his head in the sand about this one – admitting that even within his own family he’s “probably the last holdout for the traditional position” – 7.5 million Australians can’t be ignored, especially if you’re after their votes.
“It’s not [Abbott’s] job to be the moral compass for our country and the people living within,” Walker told Pedestrian. “I have quite a few mates who are gay. This affects them. But most importantly, to me, this has always been about equality. It’s unfair to treat people in such a way that discriminates them. Marriage is a right that everyone can enjoy.”
If you want to add your name, you can sign the petition here.
