[Updated 19 May] For details of event see the Equal Love Facebook page and website. There are more photos (341!) by Michael Barnett at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152426635170149.1073741850.553710148&type=1

NUS Queer Officer Naomi Farmer addressing the rally

Apart from the speakers – Adam Bandt of the Greens, Sally Goldner of Transgender Victoria, Adam Bottomley (Australian Services Union Delegate of the Year 2013), NUS Queer Officer Naomi Farmer and of course Ali Hogg, Equal Love convenor – the keynote of this rally was music. The Melbourne Gay & Lesbian Chorus, resplendent in formal (wedding?) wear, sang on the steps of the State Library during the warm up, and again with Rosco Elliott in a spectacular performance of ‘Equality’, his song written for the campaign. (See Karaoke version on YouTube here.) This performance was repeated at a halt on the march, at the intersection of Swanston and Bourke Streets, attracting attention from passers-by in away the rally itself may not have done.

As to the event as a whole, it would have to be admitted that numbers did not match those of some previous rallies – see for example reports on this site here and here, with accompanying links to YouTube videos – but at four to five hundred was still impressive. After ten years of campaigning a degree of fatigue would be understandable, but the timing may have contributed: the day was chosen to mark IDAHOBIT [International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, Bi-phobia and Intersexism – formerly and elsewhere IDAHOT], whereas the rallies just referred to were linked to the anniversary of the amendment to the Marriage Act which banned same sex marriage. (There will be a rally to mark the tenth anniversary – Saturday 16 August, again at the State Library, see http://equallove.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69:10-year-anniversary-year-of-action.) Some also may have had to choose also between this and the Beat the Budget rally hastily called for the following day (see next post).