For the last few months a fairly pointless debate has been raging in Australia concerning marriage equality. Essentially Australia is/was one of the last few remaining parts of the western world which failed to recognise same-sex marriages. The government was unable (too chicken) to come to a consensus and were unwilling to vote on the matter.
As a result a postal 'plebiscite' was announced costing over $122 million to administer. For the uninitiated (and I was one) a plebiscite differs to a referendum in that the result is not legally binding. It ultimately gives the government a 'get out' clause if things don't go their way. Really the UK should have had a plebiscite rather than the ridiculous Brexit referendum which will throw development of the country back a few generations. Similarly if the Australian government had had any balls they'd have just been able to vote on the matter and we could have all moved on $122 million better off.
I've got into a few discussions with people about the terminology of 'marriage' and whether it should be kept separate to 'same sex union' or somesuch. There are legal differences (mostly to do with end of life stuff like inheritance, access to estates etc and power of attorney) If you're really interested then look it up for yourself. Ultimately though I believe that if two people love each other then it doesn't really matter their gender or sexual persuasion and they should be able to get married same as anyone else. I don't buy the religious/moral argument either - especially when 70% of the country gets married outside of church and most of the remainder probably only get married in a church because the building has a nice stained glass window which will look good as a back-drop for wedding photos.
I was frustrated by the ongoing debate as a) it gave bigots the opportunity to publicly voice their opinion and b) the whole thing seemed like a complete waste of time and money when it was just essentially a fundamental human right that was being withheld from people and really politicians, the media et al should be talking about something which actually drives the economy, creates jobs, improves healthcare, helps refugees, stops a dirty big mine being built which will destroy the Great Barrier reef etc etc.
In the end the plebiscite (which is really just a glorified opinion poll) fell on the side of the 'Yes' vote (62% v 38% if you're interested) the ACT proudly led the way 74% v 26%. Our gay (and sadly fairly ineffective) chief minister Andrew Barr was unsurprisingly over the moon about the result.
Various ramifications and debates now have to be gone through by federal parliament but hopefully the result gives enough of a mandate to allow marriage equality to be passed into law and agreed by the end of this year.
Canberra threw an impromptu street party - again the cynic in me wondered if there were some undertones of the Chief Minister pushing his personal agenda, but what the heck it was a nice sunny evening and the street in question has a great ice cream shop on it so we all went along after school to celebrate marriage equality!
