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.

Given the widespread opposition to the 2014 Budget, the one percent have drawn an important lesson from that debacle – consult with the intended victims before launching attacks on poor people and workers. That is what the tax discussion paper is about. This Damascene conversion to talking to people begs the question – is a tax shit sandwich no longer a shit sandwich if it has consultation sprinkles on top? To ask the question is to answer it. The solution to the tax and budgetary dilemmas seems pretty clear. Tax the rich.

A militant industrial response from workers and their unions to the systemic gender pay gap has the best chance of improving the lives of women at work. That is a fight that must of necessity take on the ALP for whom the bosses and their profits are more important than equal pay. The first step in that process must be for workers in low paid and traditional gender stereotype industries to organise to smash the glass ceiling of low and unequal wages.

The Broderick Report is an attempt to beautify the soul of ugliness. Women in the Defence Forces strengthen Australian capitalism internationally and onshore. They reinforce the very system that condemns women to second class citizenry and postpone the days of real equality. More gender equality in the capitalist defence forces? No thanks.

Instead of being happy with winning a minor medal, it’s time for the ACT to go for same sex marriage gold, just as Tasmania is doing. ACT Labor and ACT Greens, the time has come to introduce same sex marriage laws in the Territory. Legislate for equality and equal love now.

Yesterday my local Canberra legislature made same sex civil partnership ceremonies in the Australian Capital Territory legally binding. This is not marriage equality but it is a step in that direction.

The 200,000 strong march for sexual equality was not just a turning point in the LGBT struggle. It kicked the door open for a civil rights movement for Equality Across America.

By marching for same-sex marriage on August 1 we forced Labor to acknowledge the issue, and we raised the murmurings of dissent that are rippling through society into a collective roar.