{"id":137091,"date":"2017-12-07T05:20:26","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T10:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=137091"},"modified":"2017-12-07T05:20:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T10:20:26","slug":"australian-parliament-allows-same-sex-marriages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/07\/australian-parliament-allows-same-sex-marriages\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Parliament allows same sex marriages"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Australia's<\/a>
Australia’s Parliament voted Thursday to allow same-sex marriage across the nation, following a bitter debate settled by a much-criticized government survey of voters that strongly endorsed change. (Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CANBERRA, Australia\u2014Australia’s Parliament voted Thursday to allow same-sex marriage across the nation, following a bitter debate settled by a much-criticized government survey of voters that strongly endorsed change.<\/p>\n

The public gallery in the House of Representatives erupted with applause when the bill passed. It changes the definition of marriage from solely between a man and a woman to \u201ca union of two people\u201d excluding all others. The legislation passed with a majority that wasn’t challenged, although five lawmakers registered their opposition.<\/p>\n

The Senate passed the same legislation last week 43 votes to 12. After royal assent and other formalities, the law will likely take effect in about a month, with the first weddings expected about a month later.<\/p>\n

Champagne and tears of flowed in the halls of Parliament House as gay celebrities including Olympic champion swimmer Ian Thorpe and actress Magda Szubanski hugged lawmakers and ordinary folk in a party atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat an amazing day, I’m a little bit delirious, it’s extraordinary,\u201d said Szubanski, who sat in the public gallery during Thursday’s daylong debate.<\/p>\n

Thorpe thanked \u201cour straight brothers and sisters\u201d for strongly backing marriage equality in the two-month postal survey.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite literally without them voting for us, this would never have happened,\u201d Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that we’ve created an Australia that is more equitable, it’s more fair, it’s more just,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Amendments meant to safeguard freedoms of speech and religion for gay-marriage opponents were all rejected, though those issues may be considered later. The government has appointed a panel to examine how to safeguard religious freedoms once gay marriage is a reality in Australia.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers advocating marriage equality had argued that the national postal survey in November mandated a change of the marriage definition alone, so changing the law should not be delayed by other considerations.<\/p>\n

Gay marriage was endorsed by 62 per cent of voters who responded to the postal ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now our job as members of Parliament to pass a fair bill that does not extend or create any new discriminations,\u201d an emotional government lawmaker Warren Entsch, who helped draft the bill, told Parliament. \u201cIt is a strong bill that already strikes the right balance between equality and freedom of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s an historic day for Australia today and I think the celebrations around the country when we finally … achieve marriage equality are going to be immense,\u201d Janet Rice said before the vote. Rice is a minor Greens party senator who was only able to remain married to her transgender wife of 31 years, Penny, because Penny remained listed as male on her birth certificate.<\/p>\n

Penny Wong, an opposition Labor Party senator who has two children with her lesbian partner, said, \u201cI am feeling happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most gay rights advocates believed the government should have allowed marriages years ago and saw various ideas for a public survey as a delaying tactic. The U.N. Human Rights Committee had called the ballot survey \u201can unnecessary and divisive public opinion poll.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current bill allows churches and religious organizations to boycott gay weddings without violating Australian anti-discrimination laws.<\/p>\n

Existing civil celebrants can also refuse to officiate at gay weddings, but celebrants registered after gay marriage becomes law would not be exempt from anti-discrimination laws.<\/p>\n

One of the rejected amendments would have ensured Australians could speak freely about their traditional views of marriage without fear of legal action. It was proposed by Attorney-General George Brandis and supported by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, both gay marriage supporters.<\/p>\n

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who was a high-profile advocate of traditional marriage, told Parliament that Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten had failed to deliver detailed protections for freedoms of speech, conscience and religion in the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cA promise was made by the leaders of this Parliament and the promise has not adequately been delivered on,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n

Abbott pointed to an Australian teenager who lost her job for advocating against gay marriage on social media and an Australian Catholic bishop who was taken before a state anti-discrimination tribunal over a pamphlet he published extolling traditional marriage. The complaint against the bishop was dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing we should want to do is to subject Australians to new forms of discrimination in place of old ones that are rightly gone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Government lawmaker Trevor Evans ruled out an Australian equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court case in which a baker who refused to provide a wedding cake for a gay couple argued he was exercising artistic freedom and was exempt from Colorado anti-discrimination laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet’s be honest here, for a case like that to arise in Australia, it would require a gay couple who care more about activism than about the success of their own wedding, to find a business operator who cares more about religious doctrine than the commercial success of their own small business, and for both of them to commit to having a fight,\u201d Evans told Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypical Australians would genuinely question the bona fides of the players in a case like that and the slim prospects of that occurring doesn’t warrant the pages and pages of commentary and debate that have been dedicated to it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Several gay marriage opponents in Turnbull’s conservative coalition have regarded marriage equality as inevitable and have welcomed an end to an issue that has long divided the government ranks.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, a same-sex marriage opponent who oversaw the postal ballot, said he felt \u201cgreat satisfaction\u201d that the issue was resolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a polarizing issue on which good Australians had strongly and sincerely held views on both sides of the argument,\u201d Cormann said.<\/p>\n

The result is a political win for Turnbull, who became prime minister after deposing Abbott in 2015 in an internal government leadership ballot.<\/p>\n

Abbott was head-butted by a gay rights advocate during the postal survey campaign in September. Kevin Rudd, a centre-left Labor Party prime minister whom Abbott defeated in elections in 2013, blamed the postal ballot for an assault on his 19-year-old godson as he campaigned for marriage equality a week earlier.<\/p>\n

Veteran gay rights campaigner Rodney Croome said he expected the first same-sex weddings in Australia would not take place until February.<\/p>\n

The law will likely take effect after a month. State laws then require couples to give 28 days’ notice of their intention to marry, Croome said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CANBERRA, Australia\u2014Australia’s Parliament voted Thursday to allow same-sex marriage across the nation, following a bitter debate settled by a much-criticized …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":137103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[268,4930,5790],"class_list":["post-137091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","tag-australia","tag-gay-marriage","tag-lgbtq","mauthors-rod-mcguirk","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}