Marriage Equality: The Same Rights Of Marriage

Marriage Equality Student Name Institution Course Date Marriage Equality Marriage equality refers to the state of having the same rights of marriage as the rest, despite an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In Australia, the campaign for gender equality was one of the gradual and persuasive. On December 2, 2019, Australia joined the rank of countries to legislate for marriage equality. The ease of access to information due to social media was critical in the success of the marriage equality campaign. The Howards Government in 2004 expressly prohibited marriage equality (Matthews and Augoustinos, 2012). Since that time, there were 23 unsuccessful attempts aimed at marriage equality had been introduced to the federal government, but only four managed to a vote, while the rest were defeated. While two-thirds of individuals in Australia had consistently indicated their support for same-sex marriages, it was still challenging for the government to legalize it. Over time, the campaign caused more Australians to understand that their LGTB counterparts deserve full equality under the law. Despite the opposition, the campaign for marriage equality managed to garner support from various groups including faith leaders, government officials, parents and influencers. Social media was critical in raising awareness of marriage equality in Australia. The success of the campaign Political will was critical in facilitating the campaign for marriage equality. Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull worked towards fulfilling the promise made by his predecessor, Tony Abbott, in a plebiscite. Mr Turnbull introduced a compulsory poll to determine the opinion of the members of the public on the issue. The plebiscite was meant to avoid opposition with the harder-right members of the government, and instead focusing on the public that had already expressed support for the issue (Robinson & Greenwich, 2017). The advantage with Australia was that it did not require a referendum to change the Constitution to approve same-sex marriage. In 2013, the High Court had already found that the Constitution defined marriage to include same-sex unions. The country needed at that time was for a parliamentary vote to alter the wording of the 2004 amendment to the Marriage Act of 1961 which recognized marriage to the union between a man and a woman. The Australian Senate rejected the legislation to establish the plebiscite two times. As a result, the government decided to undertake a voluntary postal survey to establish the view of the citizens regarding marriage equality. If the majority of Australians responded “Yes” in the survey, the government would facilitate the passage of a private member’s bill about the issue in the Parliament. On November 15, 2017, the results indicated that 61.6% voted in favour of marriage equality. Additionally, the involvement of corporates in the country created a massive awareness of same-sex marriage. While politicians were dragging their feet regarding legalizing same-sex marriages, corporate Australia was ready to defend the rights of the LGTB community. In 2008, leading corporates were frustrated by the inaction from the Federal Parliament and decided to take steps to recognize same-sex couples. These corporates...