Gay Alcorn has reported on some politicians, in both major parties who have changed their mind on legalising same sex marriage. They include Labor’s Tony Burke (Catholic), Jason Clare, and the Liberal Josh Frydenberg (Jewish) who all now support same-sex marriage. Alcorn also notes that no other politicians have jumped the other way. This is not surprising. Although politicians are supposedly our ‘leaders’ they mostly follow, because most are old white blokes in suits whose main concern is getting re-elected. Assorted opinion polls have indicated that support for same-sex marriage has been strong for a number of years, and currently runs at a level of about 2 to 1. And yet there are still the religious nutters who indicate that the sky will fall if same-sex marriage is legalised.
These religious nutters just need to get out of the way and let normal people, who don’t think it is right to treat people as less than deserving because of their sexuality, get on with bringing Australia out of the late 20th century and into the 21st. It is probably pertinent that the first nation (Netherlands) to legalise same-sex marriage did so in 2001, the first year of the new millennium. Since then it has become a rush. It was followed by:
2003 Belgium
2005 Spain, Canada
2006 South Africa
2009 Norway, Sweden
2010 Portugal, Iceland, Argentina
2012 Denmark
2013 Brazil, France, Uruguay, New Zealand
2015 Luxembourg, USA, Ireland
2016 Colombia
2017 Finland, Malta, Germany2
In Australia, it will happen soon either by a free vote in parliament under the current government after the farcical postal opinion poll, or during the next government. The fact that it has taken this long demonstrates the poor quality of our politicians and the sway their weird religious beliefs hold over them.
I was going to chuck my ballot paper in the bin as a way of demonstrating my contempt for the process and the vacuous, spineless, buffoons that have foisted it on us. However, having seen all the red herrings raised by people like Lyle Shelton, Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Cory Bernardi, Kevin Andrews and sundry other religious nutters, and the lies (either by commission or omission) spread by them3,4, I am now going to vote yes.
Sources
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/08/australias-politicians-are-late-to-the-marriage-equality-party-but-they-are-finally-arriving
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage
- http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/another-liar-parliament/
- http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/abbott-know-lying/
As with Admin I resent having to vote in such a pointless survey. Last week there was an interesting story in the local paper to the effect that almost half of the SA Federal members were going to vote how they pleased no matter what the result of the survey. Only one member stated that he would follow the results of the survey. Many of the others offered no opinion or could not be contacted.
As stated previously it is not only the religious types that are going to vote no–I know several perfectly normal people who have no interest in religion who will be voting no. They are of course entitled to their view and this should be recognised
Incidentally I think it is of little relevance to Australia as to what other countries have done–every country is different. Certainly the Earth has not shifted on its axis due to the same sex marriage votes in other countries. In my view we should do our own thing, but I doubt if the present crop of politicians would have the courage to lead the world in any even vaguely controversial issue.