Ireland has made legalising gay marriage look easy (and fun!), but Tony Abbott PM is still not having a bar of it. But where do other MPs sit? Australian Marriage Equality has a nifty tool so you can find out.
Broadly, our federal parliamentarians fall into one of five camps.
There’s the predictably opposed:
“This is a destruction of marriage, not simply a redefinition.” — Kevin Andrews
“Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.” — Philip Ruddock
The surprisingly socially conservative:
“The legal and moral issues for any children arising from such a union are yet to be fully canvassed.” — Sussan Ley
The undecided and undeclared (aka: the cop-outs):
“I will not determine my position until I see the actual bill and have a greater appreciation of my community’s sentiment.” — Anna Burke
“My view is that marriage is a unique relationship between a man and a woman. It is much more than a simple debate about preferred terminology. Relationships between same-sex couples are equally special but nevertheless by definition different.” — Josh Frydenberg
The surprisingly progressive:
“Personally, I am comfortable with the idea of same-sex marriage … I believe that changing the Marriage Act by extending the definition to include same-sex couples will not lessen the status of families. On the contrary, I think that it will strengthen it by building stronger bonds of commitment between two people regardless of gender and sexual orientation.” — Kelly O’Dwyer
And the hardline YES camp:
“Love knows no boundaries. Love knows no limits. And love knows when it has found its partner. There have been many attempts through history to limit love. All have failed. As we move further into the 21st century, I am confident that attempts to limit love will fail again and that full marriage equality will become a reality.” — Adam Bandt
Find out where your MP sits on the issue here.
You left out what is probably the majority position of the electorate – ‘duhhh!’.
Now we’re the Irish joke?
They got to vote as adults – we get to vote between governments led by either Toady Yob-it or Bull Shittin’.
Crazy part of this is that Abott’s SISTER is gay, in a long term relationship, and strong supporter of marriage equality.
Really close family, that one!
Asking my MP (the idiot formerly known as Babanaby Joke) where he stands would get any of a number of responses, depending on who he talked to most recently.
Entertainingly, all this stuff about “special relationships”, “love” and “but the children” is completely irrelevant to the point at hand, which is the *legal* definition of marriage.