One of the major news last 2014 was
same-sex marriage. Then Prime Minister Tony Abbott was confronted
by a Year 9 student from Newtown High School of the Performing Arts who was
on a trip to Canberra, “Why are you so against legalising gay marriage?” For
someone who has a sister, Christine Forster, who is in a same-sex relationship,
you would think it would be easy for him to answer this question. PM Abbott is
against same-sex marriage and so do most, if not all, of Liberal Party members.
Unlike BREXIT, the
concept of equality such as same-sex marriage does not require an expensive
$160 million referendum or plebiscite. If the Liberal Party stays true to
its ‘liberal’ roots, liberal democracy should not support a referendum, instead
this issue should be resolved by just changing the law, which Labor and Greens
suggest. Now current PM Turnbull has a real challenge this July 2016 election.
Forget Medicare, Gonski or housing affordability, the issue that will really
define this election is same-sex marriage. And the Liberal Party has been
delaying and are so far behind this issue for so long.
Australians are increasingly
becoming in favour of same-sex marriage. Survey
shows that 72% of Australians wants same-sex marriage legalised. And that survey was in
2014! PM Turnbull’s strategy to ignore this ‘elephant in the room’ may be his
political defeat. Labor Senator Penny Wong, who is gay, thinks that Australia is
ready for same-sex marriage, and added that a plebiscite will only allow LGBTQ haters
to spout malicious and false claims such as that same sex couples harm
children. Of course this myth had been debunked, but some Australians, and few
Australian-Filipinos I know, are not keen on accepting this. For example, this
religious bigot Cori Bernardi, author of the Conservative Revolution, made a hideous
comment that gay marriage will be a slippery slope towards bestiality and
polygamy, which is another false claim. If you haven’t noticed yet, the only
group opposed to same-sex marriage is the religious group. This group made
hating gays a career. Enter the Australian Sex Party, which made a video ridiculing the
religious right on its’ dogmatic insistence to control weddings “so gays can’t
say I do”. This political Party is not for fun, it was conceived as a “response
to increasingly
draconian censorship laws and escalating Government encroachment on adult’s
civil liberties”.
We are living in the 21st century now yet
sometimes it feels like we are still in 14th century Europe. I might as well
remind Australian-Filipinos that Australia is a democracy and there is a
constitutional basis (Preamble Section 116) for the separation of church and
state. Your religious law to hate (or kill gays) only apply to your religion.
So keep your religion to yourself. But we know this is next to impossible.
Australia votes July 2 and if marriage equality matters
to you, then you know who to vote for. For sure, it’s not the Liberal Party,
unless PM Turnbull suddenly makes a 180 degrees change in policy.
