PERTH, Australia — For same-sex couples like Saskia and Ren, changing a law to allow gay couples to marry is the difference between being tolerated and being accepted.
“Without marriage equality, it keeps us separate and different,” says Saskia, who with her partner Ren is raising two young boys. “It keeps us less than, it keeps us something to be talked about, something to be beaten up, something to be corrected or rectified, something to be scoffed at, something to be scared of, something to protect your children from.
“But once marriage equality comes through, you can’t maintain that level of bigotry.”
A change in Australia‘s laws took a big step forward on Wednesday, as results from a plebiscite showed overwhelming support to legalize same sex marriage. Australia’s Bureau of Statistics reported that 61.6 percent approved of legalizing same-sex marriage and 38.4 percent opposed. The ABS said that all states and territories recorded a majority “yes” response, and that 79.5 percent of eligible Australians voted.
The results of the postal survey, not legally binding, propels the issue to national lawmakers for final consideration of changing Australia’s laws on marriage. Legalizing same-sex marriage would place Australia in the company of the vast majority of developed nations.
Observers say changing laws to legalize same-sex marriage will provide an economic boom to the nation. One report from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, or ANZ, projects a nearly 1 billion Australian-dollar ($763 million) annual benefit from legalizing same-sex marriage.
More than two dozen countries around the world have legalized same-sex marriage. South Australia Labor Party Sen. Penny Wong said the postal vote put a spotlight on how out of step the government has been with the Australian people. Australians are getting older, becoming less religious and have been born in nearly 200 other countries, according to results from the 2016 national census, which placed the nation’s population at 23.4 million. The census recorded 47,000 same-sex couples in 2016, an 81 percent increase from the 26,000 couples recorded in 2006. All told, as much as 10 percent of Australia’s population may be gay, according to the country’s Human Rights Commission.
“The postal vote coming back as a resounding yes means more to my family than I knew,” said Saskia following the announcement. “Now we hand it back to the politicians to finally take a stand for equality and make this a reality. We have waited long enough. It’s time.”
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is now expected to call for a vote in Parliament to settle the matter. The postal plebiscite, which is estimated to cost taxpayers about 122 million Australian dollars — followed up on a campaign promise from the prime minister to gauge public opinion.
Parliament will need to pass a bill to change the law. Western Australian Liberal Party Sen. Dean Smith has drafted a same-sex marriage bill that provides for same-sex marriage and also protects religious freedoms. “I’ll be arguing the parliamentary free vote option,” Smith said at a recent news conference. “We can have same-sex marriage and religious freedoms and be better for it.”
In 2004, Parliament approved a bill from then-Prime Minister John Howard that amended the Marriage Act to more narrowly define marriage as between a man and a woman. Several Australian states have challenged that decision over the years, but Australia’s High Court overturned those decisions, ruling that federal law held precedence.
Saskia says Parliament didn’t take the issue to the public when John Howard changed the constitution to “exclude us from marriage, so why is that they can make decisions about other aspects of Australians’ lives, and yet they put this to a postal vote that singles us out and make us less than or different?”
Campaign Serves to Divide Rather Than Unite
The lead-up to the vote revealed deep divisions in Australia, and the campaign for the postal survey heightened those divisions.
Opponents of gay marriage are calling for broad exemptions to discrimination law that would allow service providers such as florists and bakers to refuse gay weddings if they choose.
Officials at the Coalition for Marriage, a lobbying group that calls for defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, voiced concerns about religious freedoms and stressed that condoning same-sex marriage could impact religious education programs for children.
“If you’re worried about religious freedom and freedom of speech, vote no,” said former Prime Minister Tony Abbott during a news conference in Canberra. “And, if you don’t like political correctness, vote no because voting no will help to stop political correctness in its tracks,” he said.
Wong, who is gay, said on the Senate floor that the debate was not respectful. She said she was offended by comments about “what sorts of families were optimal, what sorts of families were good and why my family is not.”
“The Australian Christian lobby described our children as the stolen generation,” Wong said. “You talk about unifying moments? It is not a unifying moment. It is exposing our children to that kind of hatred.”
Ren said she was appalled by the rhetoric expressed from the “No” campaign. “When it comes to social injustice, I can’t understand that kind of hate, because you are actively going out of your way to encourage people to vote no against my right to marry the woman I love.”
Marriage Equality Brings Economic Benefits
ANZ senior analysts Cherelle Murphy and Mandeep Kaura predicted in a recent research note that marriage equality in Australia could bring in about 500 million Australian dollars a year from additional expenditures related to weddings alone if half of the estimated 33,000 same-sex couples in Australia got married.
They predict the benefits to the economy in the first year of the legislation would be more than 1 billion Australian dollars, noting that the rush to same-sex weddings would be a “fresh and much needed source of demand for the Australian economy.”
In an open letter of support, 836 corporations voiced their support of marriage equality. The companies included Amazon, Apple, American Express, Ford, GE, Goldman Sachs, McDonald’s, Microsoft, P&G and numerous others. The letter stressed that not only is marriage equality “the only truly fair option, it is also a sound economic option given, that a happy workforce is a productive one.”
It urged global companies to “create a fair and respectful environment for all” if they are to remain competitive and to attract top talent globally.
“I’m proud to be Australian but I want to be proud to be a gay Australian,” said Qantas CEO Alan Joyce during a recent CEO roundtable discussion on marriage equality. Australia was one of the first countries to give women the right to vote, he said, “but our progressive nature has gone missing on this issue.”
Marriage Equality National Director Rodney Croome said leadership from the corporate sector will be key in achieving marriage reform. It’s not only about being able to recruit top talent globally, Croome said. “It’s a moral imperative … it’s about a fair go.”
For Jodie and Sue, a Lesbian couple in their 40s who have been together for 26 years, the vote doesn’t make a big difference in how they live their daily lives.
But if their two young children, ages 5 and 9, wanted them to get married, “it becomes an issue of choice,” Jodie said. “And that does matter.”
“I didn’t fall in love with Sue because she’s a woman. I fell in love with Sue because she’s Sue.”
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Australians Strongly Endorse Same-Sex Marriage originally appeared on usnews.com
