En Passant

  The marriage equality battle seems all but won, but the fight against reaction and for equality in many other areas goes on, I write in Independent Australia in an article called the onward march to equality.

Conservatives are rallying against marriage equality in a desperate attempt to defend a backward system of discrimination that is crumbling around them, says John Passant in Independent Australia​.

The Turnbull Government’s requirement for a postal plebiscite on marriage equality but not for sending troops to North Korea only reinforces the importance of voting ‘yes’, says John Passant in Independent Australia.

To move the ALP to really fighting for marriage equality maybe our demand should be for them to make the Parliament ungovernable. Labor could refuse to vote for any government motion or Bill, even ones they in theory agree with, until the Government allows a free vote on marriage equality.

We could begin that process by making the cities unworkable, by calling protests with the express goal of thousands of supporters closing down key entry points until the government allows a free vote on same sex marriage and calling on Labor to make the Parliament unworkable until that happens.

If Labor really wants to win marriage equality then my suggestion is they build and lead a mass, radical, civil rights campaign rather than playing parliamentary games. Mass movements move society. Politicians respond, not lead, on issues like this.

Is it the case for Labor that white Australian gays and lesbians are good, but that brown skinned refugee and asylum seeker gays and lesbians are bad and should be imprisoned in the concentration camps of Manus Island and Nauru and punished for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality? Labor’s support for offshore detention says the answer to that question is yes. To echo Nelson Mandela in a different context but with a theme of universal solidarity: ‘We know too well our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of gay and lesbian refugees and asylum seekers.’ That is why the campaign to liberate gay and lesbian asylum seekers and refugees must be at the forefront of the campaign for equal love.

The vote in Federal Parliament against marriage equality shows not that the movement has failed but that it has not yet won the final battle. The fact that equal love is only on the agenda because of grass roots activism shows the way forward. Build the campaign. Make it stronger and bigger and louder.

We chanted on the rally that we want marriage equality now. Not the second class citizenship that is civil unions but full marriage equality. Speaker after speaker argued for it. Over to you to deliver, ACT Greens, not in some distant future but this week.

The ACT Greens have capitulated to ACT Labor and instead of introducing a marriage equality bill will support Labor’s civil unions Bill. This Bill accepts the discriminatory idea that marriage is between a man and a woman. There is no constitutional, legal or political impediment to the Greens introducing an equal marriage Bill now.

A National Day of Action across Australia for marriage equality is being held on Saturday 11th August, 2012. It is being organised by various grassroots community groups, such as Equal Love and Community Action Against Homophobia.