Rarely in life can you celebrate making history
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Together we have achieved something truly remarkable, a win for fairness and equality, not only for the LGBTI community and our families, but for all Australians.
We have seen immense leadership from across the country, with everyday Australians standing up for their LGBTI mates, and doing something we have been asking Federal Parliament to do for over a decade 鈥� vote Yes to a reform that will make people happy, treat people equally, and move us forward as the brilliantly diverse nation we are.
Throughout this campaign millions of conversations have been had and the result of the postal survey celebrates the millions of Australians who have taken action in support of equality.
Whether you were one of the first people to lobby your MP or one of the last people to post your survey form, you have shaped Australia as a better place for all.
Of course this campaign has been tough for some. Mental health services have reported spikes in calls for support. This was never a process we wanted. People from every political party opposed it. We tried to stop it in the听High Court 鈥� all听we wanted was for the Parliament to do its job and just vote this through.
People did turn their anger into action, and campaigned for us and with us like never before.
Hundreds of thousands enrolled or updated their voter details to participate, over 100,000 doors were knocked, and we made over one million phone calls reminding people of the role they are playing in making history.
Five million leaflets were handed out with millions of conversations about why marriage equality matters. Over 250 000 posters were put up in in homes and businesses, 150,000 badges are being worn right across Australia with great pride, and over one million Yes stickers are on cars, phone cases, and folders.
This unprecedented support and momentum has exceeded the expectations, not just of this campaign, but any campaign in our history. In doing so it has delivered an unequivocal mandate to Federal Parliament to vote this through by the end of the year.
The positivity and message of this campaign has already been heard loud and clear by Canberra, with Senators across the political spectrum set to begin debate on a fair marriage equality bill that will deliver marriage equality by the end of the year.
Your work throughout the postal survey campaign and this over-ten-year movement has led to a historic pathway to marriage equality, one powered by a political consensus that has never been seen before.
Just as our campaign has brought Australians together, parliamentarians across the political spectrum are coming together to finally get this done.
Getting to this point has not been easy, but rarely in your life can you celebrate with such pride overcoming adversity to make history.
Well done, now federal parliament let鈥檚 get this done.
Hi Marsha. If that’s true, then that’s more the fault of our ‘government’, who, if they were a compitent body that provides a duty-of-care for it’s people, would have offered education through those two destructive months (but if the ‘govt’ was competent, then we wouldn’t have had a postal-pleb in the first instance).
We must also realise that not all Muslims are stereotypes; just like we are not. I’ve been blessed to meet and know some good, friendly and supportive Muslims of different ages (when I studied at uni a few years ago, and relationships would come into casual conversations in between classes, the Muslim people I encountered never blinked an eye, and would genuinely ask things to me like “how’s your partner” and ” that’s lovely that you’ve been together for so long”.
Needless to say, there’s also a lot of good and friendly supporters of ‘our lot’ from other religious backgrounds and positions; this was seen substantially during the ‘two-months-from-hell’.
It’s the blinkered religious-fundamentalists, and the insecure self-righteous who give the good people in any religion or group a bad name.
The best way for any minority to help dispel myths is to put efforts into proving otherwise; if we sit back and do nothing, then we’re just as bad as educators who don’t educate about us.
I was aghast to find out today that Muslims were told that same sex marriage was like incest and 3 out of 4 of them voted no. This will make it very hard for me or my partner to support them whenever they are next maligned.
I was aghast to find out today that Muslims were told that same sex marriage was like incest and 3 out of 4 of them voted no. This will make it very hard to support them whenever they are next maligned.