SIGN THE PETITION TO FORCE A VOTE ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY
By James Branson
… also, check out the rad graph we made ^^^
With the recent news that Parliament now has the votes to pass legislation enabling same-sex marriage, we can now avoid a costly and completely unnecessary plebiscite.
Trouble is that Malcolm Turnbull, as part of his leadership coup against Tony Abbott last year, promised the hardcore-right of the Liberal Party (we’re talking Eric Abetz, Corey Bernadi and the like) that he would leave any action on same-sex marriage until after the next election. He also promised that it would be done with a plebiscite.
Put simply – a small group of Liberal party douchebags are preventing a free vote in Parliament, forcing a taxpayer-funded $150 million plebiscite, all so they can tell their small-minded constituents that they did their best to stop the hordes of Queers from forcing straight people to get gay-married.
Thankfully, you can now give preventing this complete waste of time and money a red-hot go by signing this here GetUp petition from Australian Marriage Equality.
“We elected our government to make fair decisions,” says an open letter to the PM on the petition (and yes, I’m aware I just linked to the same thing three times in the one sentence – the hint there is THAT YOU SHOULD REALLY GO AND SIGN THE THING).
“Your government has the ability to legislate for marriage equality right now… (but) senators from your own government have confirmed they will ignore the result of any successful plebiscite.”
The petition goes on to helpfully point out that a recent Senate Committee advised that the best way forward to end marriage discrimination was through a parliamentary vote.
Okay, enough reading now. Head across to GetUp and sign the damn thing.