Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 13th, 2016
The opposition Labor party joined the governing right-of-center Liberal Party under Prime Minister John Howard to pass an amendment to Australia’s marriage law to ban same-sex marriage. The amendment specified:
Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: (a) a man and another man; or (b) a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia.
The bill had been introduced by Liberal Attorney General Phillip Ruddock just two months after the UK’s Civil Partnership Act had been proposed. Labor shadow Attorney-General Nicola Roxon announced that same day that Labor would not oppose the amendment. Labor’s support wasn’t universal. Anthony Albanese, Labor MP for Grayndler, said the bill was the “result of 30 bigoted backbenchers who want to press buttons in the community.”
The bill’s critics challenged the government’s priorities, asking why there was a such a rush to ban same-sex marriage when the proposed anti-terrorism law hadn’t been voted on yet. Government and Labor responded by switching the schedule for the two bills and passed the anti-terrorism law first before approving the amendment in June. In the Senate, both parties joined to cut off debate, a move that Democrat leader Sen. Andrew Bartlett roundly condemned: “This is just an absolute disgrace … (you are saying) we have to do it now, otherwise society will crumble and the world will end. You are saying, ‘It is urgent that we take away as many freedoms and rights from people as possible and do it really quickly before they notice and get a chance to be upset about it’.” But that is exactly what they did, and on August 13, the measure passed the Senate by a vote of 38-6.
Bills to provide marriage equality have been introduced in Australia’s Parliament in 2006, 2009, 2012, and 2014, but they have gone nowhere. In 2015, Abbot proposed holding a national plebiscite on the question following the 2016 elections. When Abbot’s party deposed him as leader later that year, his replacement, Malcolm Turbull reiterated Abbot’s call for a referendum. After Turbull’s coalition was narrowly re-elected earlier this year, Turnbull hinted that the plebiscite may not happen until 2017.
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