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Canberra rallies for equality, against ACT compromise Equal Love Canberra |
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Written by Gab Hitch | Equal Love
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Sunday, 29 November 2009 23:16 |
housands of Australians, including almost 200 Canberrans, took part in rallies nationwide today to condemn the results of a Senate Report and to launch a "Year of Action" for marriage equality for 2010. Speakers at the Canberra event also branded the civil union deal brokered between the ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell and the federal government "an unacceptable compromise which must be rejected".
The Senate Report released on Thursday 26 November declared marriage equality too "emotive" and "controversial" to be supported, ignoring the 60 percent majority* of Australians who support it. Spokesperson for Equal Love Canberra, Gab Hitch, told the crowd the Report put politics before principle.
"The 60 percent support for marriage equality in Australia is, in political terms, a landslide. But the Senate Report opposed equality and majority opinion, and instead cowtowed to a radical religious fringe that rejects any social progress," Hitch said.
A religious celebrant of the Canberra Quakers, Dorothy Broom, told the crowd:
"Religious freedom must mean more than just the right for a minority to preach fear, hatred and exclusion against same-sex couples. It must allow churches like mine who uphold marriage equality to affirm and support the marriage of any of their members who choose to marry - not only those who are heterosexual."
A recent deal on civil unions struck between Simon Corbell and the federal government removes the legal effect of ceremonies and reduces the registration of relationships to a paper process. Hitch said the deal was "not what we wanted".
"The Corbell-McClelland deal - which our community was never consulted on - is an unacceptable compromise which waters down civil union laws to point of making them unrecognisable to the original legislation," Hitch said.
"The ACT Legislative Assembly must reject these amendments and defend its right to make its own laws," Hitch added.
John Kloprogge, of Equal Love Canberra, said achieving genuine official ceremonies was worth the risk of another federal veto.
"For three years we've defended the ACT's right to legislate for civil unions, but the compromise made last week is indefensible. If rejecting this compromise risks another federal veto, that's a risk we're willing to take," Kloprogge said.
Large rallies were also held in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Lismore (NSW), where organisers vowed make marriage equality a federal election issue.
Media comment:
Gab Hitch: ph 0416 851 894
John Kloprogge: ph 0422 913 942,
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Farida Iqbal: ph 0412 109 160. |
