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.

Imagine if Labor mobilised hundreds of thousands to take to the streets to win equal love. That is a real plan B, Labor. Lead a mass civil rights campaign for equal marriage. Do it now. Call us out on to the streets to stop business as usual until we win equal love.

The decision to gut the Safe Schools program is another example of systemic oppression. It is the fight by yesterday’s men and women to retain the worst elements of the past. It is in this sense real reaction. The destruction of this small safe space for young people will lead to more deaths and serious mental and physical problems. How then can we fight the destruction of Safe Schools and homophobia more generally?

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.

Unite and fight this rotten Abbott government now.

Queer socialist activist, writer, and soon to be public school teacher in Boston, MA, Keegan O’Brien, responds in Jacobin to those on the left who dismiss the US Supreme Court’s historic ruling on June 26 making gay marriage the law of the land in all fifty states as at best insignificant, and at worst a step backwards. In explaining why they’re wrong he says in part:

‘When calls for radical change take the place of figuring out how to dynamically relate to people other than committed leftists, activists have created an echo chamber that only inhibits movement building. Demands to abolish marriage or smash the state may generate support from other radicals, but they remain empty slogans without the popular forces required to bring about social transformation…

‘Long-term, patient organizing may not be the revolution. But it’s the only way to get us there.’

The homophobes hope they can manoeuvre away from a vote on same sex marriage or that if there is one they can win a majority against equal love. That is why they are stalling. Shorten’s Bill has cut the Gordian knot and put same sex marriage on the politicians’ agenda for resolution this year.

Given the level of public support for same sex marriage I believe Tony ‘Canute’ Abbott cannot now turn back the tide of a vote nor the tide of a successful vote for same sex marriage before the end of the year. We can smell victory. Let’s make it a reality. Increase the pressure on the Parliament now to win equality by the end of the year.