A Post For Those Confused About State Of Marriage Equality Campaign

By Samuel Leighton-Dore

Pardon the wacky headline, but these are wacky times.

It’s a pretty confusing time to be a supporter of marriage equality in Australia. First we all voted in an election that we were repeatedly told we didn’t stand a goddamn chance of winning. Then we waited something like two weeks (my notion of time kinda turned into a depressing puddle of slush at that point) to find out that we actually came pretty damn close.

But still lost.

Naturally, we all took a week or so to regroup.

THEN we were told the plebiscite would be happening this year. Then we were told it would be happening next year. Our one-time champion Bill Shorten appeared defiant on the subject one minute, and resigned to it the next. Then we had prominent members of the marriage equality campaign announce that the plebiscite didn’t have to happen at all, that a free vote in parliament was still entirely possible – while others were very publicly gearing up to campaign.

Australian Marriage Equality (AME), once viewed as the holy Beyonce of the fight for equality, suddenly frayed into a seemingly out-of-step Destiny’s Child; all wanting to create the same fabulous hit song, but harboring different ideas of how it should be produced.

Former Deputy National Director Ivan Hinton-Teoh left the organisation to start his own, just.equal, which, along with Shelley Argent at PFLAG, recently ran a poll of the LGBTI community’s views on the plebiscite and has been on the forefront of the anti-pleb media campaign. He and PFLAG are firmly #NoPlebiscite.

Then, somewhat shockingly to those who hadn’t already joined the dots, Founding National Director of AME Rodney Croome left the organisation, joining forces with Ivan to fight the plebiscite all the way to the bitter end.

In the meantime, Tom Snow, the son of Canberra Airport owner Terry Snow, and his husband Brook Horne, both of whom have been committing a shit-tonne of time and money to the campaign for equality, setup ANOTHER organisation, Australia 4 Equality, to focus solely on preparing for the likely event of a plebiscite. In doing so, they’ve enlisted the support and expertise of one Mr. Tiernen Brady, who played a big part in Ireland winning their “yes” campaign back whenever that happened (again, time, mush).

At the end of the day, most of us mere mortals, those trying to stay passionate, those trying to stay informed, those trying to get behind a cause we believe so deeply in, are left channeling our best Nathalie Wood in Rebel Without A Cause.

Do we even want marriage equality ASAP anymore?

I think the most important take-away from the past month is that, regardless of how fractured the media chooses to present our community to the mainstream public, we all understand that any divisions in our community aren’t born of hate, mistreatment or malice. We’re just looking at the beast from different angles, which is totally fair enough given it’s a massive freakin’ BEAST and we’re all strong, awesome, opinionated people WHO GIVE A DAMN.

Rodney Croome is an incredible man with incredible conviction who has done an incredible job pushing this country to the cusp of equality. Those currently at the helm of AME and A4E are bloody incredible also. This is a huge conversation, and it’s full of voices. Each voice is valid, and we can’t stop respecting the shit out of that.

Look, we probably won’t know WTF is going on with the plebiscite until September. Some think it’s inevitable. Some don’t. Some are ready and willing to fight. Some would rather push for an alternative solution or wait and avoid putting young members of the community through what will no doubt be a grueling and hurtful campaign.

Some will probably argue that by taking different paths we’ll fall short of our common destination.

And maybe they’re right.

But remember, no matter what they say, we ain’t divided. Michelle, Kelly or Beyonce; we’re all making music and the whole country is listening.