On Saturday, major football corporations in Australia, including the AFL, NRL and Football Federation Australia will run a full page advert in the Weekend Australian Magazine showing their support for same sex marriage in Australia, according to The Guardian.
The joint move closely follows the lead of dozens of major Australian corporations who took out a full page ad in The Australian last month, publicly advocating for marriage equality. The four major banks, Twitter, Telstra, McDonalds, QANTAS, Virgin Australia, David Jones, iiNet, Optus, Vodafone and a slew of others showed their support for the #TeamEqual campaign.
The advert reportedly will read: “On and off the field we support and stand by our mates. These sporting codes unanimously stand for fairness, believing all Australians should be treated fairly and equally in the eyes of the law.”
Earlier this month, the NRL publicly declared their support for marriage equality in Australia, with Rabbitohs’ player Tom Burgess criticising the current legislation on marriage.
“It’s ignorant and old-fashioned [to think] if you’re male you can only love a female. Nowadays, anyone can love anyone. And people just need to get over it.”
While Bill Shorten‘s bill on marriage equality introduced to (a near-empty) Parliament last month was reduced to dust faster than you could say won’t-somebody-please-think-of-the-children, when Parliament returns from its Winter recess in August, same-sex marriage will once again be put on the table, with a bill pushed by LNP MP Warren Entsch and seconded by ALP MP Terri Butler.
Despite the Prime Minister’s openly-gay sister Christine Forster urging Tony Abbott to allow a conscience vote in the Liberal Party room on marriage equality – the fate of that vote is as yet unknown. However, were a conscience vote to go ahead, Fairfax recently tallied six LNP MPs publicly in favour of same sex marriage: Malcolm Turnbull, Greg Hunt, Simon Birmingham, Josh Frydenberg, Marise Payne and Kelly O’Dwyer.
But before then, 2015’s defining event on marriage equality will take place, as Australia’s first openly-gay woman Cabinet member Penny Wong will lock horns with staunchly anti-marriage equality advocate Cory Bernardi on July 29. The sick burns. We can taste them already.
Via The Guardian.
Lead image by Torsten Blackwood via Getty.
