I’VE written a lot about LGBTQI equality in the past 18 months. It’s no wonder – the marriage equality issue has reached boiling point in Australia, and many are wondering if this country is mature enough to leapfrog civil unions (which were an essential step in UK and NZ legislation a decade ago) and go ‘straight’ to full marriage laws.
Some days I think so, some days I waver, although I do have a three-way bet with some friends in New Zealand about when same-sex marriage will arrive on our shores. My odds are about middling, I suspect.
Meanwhile, I write. This poetic rant first appeared on LGBTicons.
SIBLING RIVALRY Christine Forster and her brother, Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
I’m starting to lose it with Australia.
THEY say that I have only two choices here in my homeland: I must either love this place or leave it.
I did try, like many of my brothers and sisters before me, when I took myself to the other side of the world, believing that distance would disguise my self disgust.
But there, in the fold of loneliness, the gay man still showed himself in the mirror when I stopped to look, and so I brought him home.
Oh, the endless fuss that still rumbles from my coming-out homecoming. The silences and the judgements that are held against me behind the smiles.
They wanted me to lie, now they want to punish me for being a liar, but I will not wear it.
No-one asks if you’re gay when you take out a home loan with your same-sex partner.
No-one asks if you feel equal when they tax you at the same rate as those who are free to express their love through marriage.
No-one asks if you’re gay when the bushfires lick every stick in the valley below the rows of precious lives, they only demand, quite rightly, that you help.
And we help. Yet that is never quite enough.
I see the dykes like patient, weathered stones, waiting for this people to realise their help is solid, unflinching and safe.
I see the poofs in caring generations that do not waver, they only want to play when it’s time to play.
I’ve watched us earn our equality. Our stripes are bright and they have nothing left to prove.
But the people elected a man who told them to be very, very afraid of difference.
He has a dyke sister who, we hope, is starting to get very, very angry, the way dykes sometimes can, and while their edge begins to scare you, you know you’re in very good hands, if you’re on their side.
I hope she rips ten colours of rainbow out of him this Christmas, as another year closes on the country he leads, the same country, and the same man, that prevent her marrying her fiancée.
I hope he hides, for even just a moment, in retreat, and has a long hard look at himself in the ensuite bathroom mirror, before he wipes that leering smile back onto his face, and puts on another show for the only people he truly represents: his family.
No more platitudes. No more promises. No more big Aussie smiles to cover our shame.
I am not going to leave this place, until none of its children must leave it in fear.
IN July 2013 I started contributing to independent Australian news site No Fibs, a journey which began with the controversial issue of marriage equality.
The 2013 federal election was yet to be called, but former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had toppled Julia Gillard and done something totally unexpected – he’d come out in support of same-sex marriage.
When I approached former Fairfax journalist and one-time editor of pioneer online news site Webdiary, and editor-in-chief of No Fibs,Margo Kingston, I felt in my gut that marriage equality was going to be pivotal election policy ground, and asked her why there was nothing on it at No Fibs.
In her generous, proactive manner, Margo asked me to step-up and write something for the site.
What’s interesting about this piece, written a year ago, is that not much has changed for marriage equality in the interim: it’s still a political football.
Even though the government has changed and we have a few more federal MPs who support same-sex marriage, the issue is still being booted up and down the field, waiting for a politician of any stripe to take the free kick this majority-supported human right will be.
SAVVY SENATOR The LNP’s Sue Boyce shows the Senate what an equality conscience looks like.
The chances of marriage equality in Australia.
SUPPORTERS of marriage equality in Australia would have been forgiven for thinking the issue was dead in the water under the 43rd Parliament.
We endured Tony Abbott’s predictable religious opposition. We winced at Julia Gillard’s incomprehensible atheist mantra against relationship freedom. We shed tears as Penny Wong assured us of a more enlightened tomorrow.
Then something happened which nobody predicted. Kevin Rudd, with one cogent blog post, became the highest-profile Australian politician, and Christian, to get behind marriage equality.
Before he was reinstated as Prime Minister, this news remained a hopeful anecdote. Now it’s fast becoming the point of difference which may wedge Rudd into a win at the ballot box.
Galaxy polling from last weekend indicates 11 per cent of polled Coalition voters would back Kevin Rudd and Labor at the election, based on his support for same-sex marriage.
So, what are the chances of marriage equality under the 44th Parliament?
“It does give you anxiety to know that holding hands in public is still considered by some to be a political act.”
This double-edged sword was wielded in 2012, when the Government voted on marriage equality with their consciences, while the Opposition voted with Tony Abbott’s. The bill to amend the Marriage Act was resoundingly, and predictably, lost.
The ALP’s conscience vote on same-sex marriage cannot be changed at party level before their next national conference, which is why Rudd’s new front bench is busy saying Tony Abbott’s grip on his ministers’ views is heavy-handed.
So let’s look at Abbott’s stance. Despite the coming-out of his lesbian sister Christine Forster, Tony Abbott has remained unconvinced by her deeply held desire to see equality in her country, let alone within her own family.
Progressive voters, quite rightly, saw these as so many dangling carrots. When pressed, Abbott dismissed the suggestion there was a need to define marriage equality as an important issue for a potential Coalition government, citing how close his views were to Prime Minister Gillard’s.
Marriage equality never had less of a chance in Australia, until Rudd’s backflip.
Most of the religious themes of his blog post were lost on me.
As someone who gave a live submission to the Human Rights Commission’s 2006 Same Sex: Same Entitlements hearing, which was used by Rudd and his first cabinet to remove almost 100 pieces of legislation discriminating against same-sex couples, I knew he’d long had all he needed to understand that the case for same-sex marriage was already a human rights no-brainer.
TALK ABOUT KEVIN KRudd’s backflip on marriage equality was a surprise.
But it wasn’t what he wrote which held my attention, it was what he said at press conferences, stating a desire to end the “unnecessary angst” amongst a large proportion of the community.
It’s an interesting word, angst, but it’s a great description of the stasis an increasing number of same-sex couples endure while we wait for our leaders to sort out marriage equality.
We are encouraged into joint financial commitments, and all the customs and commitment inherent in extended family life, yet we are denied access to the fundamental legal and symbolic bedrock of loving relationships, if we find we want or need one.
It does give you angst to know that if something happened to your partner, through death or incapacitation, even a distant relative could make a case for financial gain, while you are left chasing statutory declarations warranting what a simple marriage certificate could.
It does give you anxiety to know that holding hands in public is still considered by some to be a political act, knowing that we should have secured marriage equality long ago in order to start the real work: changing hearts and minds, under the protection of full equality enshrined in law.
Kevin also did something which added to my confidence in him on this issue. He stood up to his sister.
If he explained it to her the same way as he explained it to us, I imagine Kevin reminded Loree that Australia is a secular nation in which religious conviction is secondary to social reform. That realisation, matched with his vocal reassurances to Australia’s same-sex community, is what you call leadership by any definition.
Despite many in its ranks making their support for marriage equality public, including self-proclaimed preferred Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, and Senator Sue Boyce’s decision to cross the floor and vote for it, Tony Abbott and the Coalition remain locked into opposition to same-sex marriage in Australia.
A clear choice has presented itself where there so recently was none.
Michael Burge Media 