“This festival of dumbarsery began in 2004 when the government of John Howard decided to change the wording of the 1961 Marriage Act because it didn’t specify that the people being married could not be of the same gender. A line was added to make marriage “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”. And thus was an entirely avoidable political problem created.”
Even as you tick “yes” and send your voluntary survey ballot paper in THE VERY DAY you receive it, thanks, it’s important to remember the completely unnecessary bullshit that has brought us to this ugly point in Australian cultural and political history – and, importantly, the people who lied and keep lying to you about it.
That’s my new article at Rolling Stone Australia, Marriage Equality: A History of Avoidance.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: As anyone who listens to my’n’Dom Knight’s podcast The Double Disillusionists (available at Omny, or subscribe on iTunes) would be aware, the constant barrage of homophobic No arguments does a lot to send the message to LGBTIQ folks, especially young people, that they’re not welcome and not valued.
Therefore, I’m instituting a zero tolerance policy on my social media and this site: if you have a problem with marriage equality, you’re very welcome to rant about it somewhere else because I’m just going to delete anything hateful that’s submitted.
I don’t imagine that the sort of people wanting to check out an Andrew P Street website are huge No voters, to be honest, but in any case they don’t get to use my platform to spread their weird fears.
Yours ever,
APS
Andrew P Street Is The Internet 
The URL is coming up 404. This is the URL I found the story on – http://rollingstoneaus.com/culture/post/marriage-equality-a-history-of-avoidance/7030
Thanks for that, amended.
Great article.
One of the good things to come out of this, regardless of the outcome – is that Howard and Abbott may have shot themselves, and organised religion, in the foot.
Now it has been accepted by the High Court that a plebiscite held outside Election Law by the ABS is a perfectly legal way to change Australian Laws.
So another plebiscite, held under the same auspices, should be proposed.
“Should churches be allowed to pay no tax?”
As they are trying to define secular life they should be made to contribute financially like everyone else.
No Representation Without Taxation.