Was it a good or bad election for the nation’s million or so gays and lesbians? Here’s my verdict, published by the National Times today (a joint venture of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age). It’s going strong with the most comments of all opinion pieces today.
The start could hardly have been worse. Tony Abbott felt threatened by us, a Family First candidate linked gay marriage to child abuse, and Penny Wong sounded weak in defending Labor’s policy against marriage equality. Things started to look up when Greens’ vocal ‘equal love’ campaign was rewarded with a record vote. When Andrew Wilkie tabled a conscience vote on marriage as a priority the picture looked even better. Now the Labor-Greens agreement now leaves gays waiting (hopefully) at the altar.
The way forward is clearning a conscience vote on a Private Members Bill – but let’s not kid ourselves how tough that campaign will be …
(UPDATE: Good news in that the Greens promise to re-introduce Marriage Equality bill on first day of Parliament.)
