20 Jun 2016

It’s really no surprise that most Australians support same-sex marriage. Whether you’re gay, straight or both, you probably agree that people are just people, all worthy of respect. By now, most of us have encountered a gay relative, friend or colleague, and sexual orientation is just one detail of our complex and ever growing identities.

So why is it that Australians who are attracted to the same-sex still can’t marry each other?

The last serious poll on marriage equality was conducted in June 2015 and revealed that 72% of Aussies think gay marriage should be legal. More recent figures indicate that support may have risen as high as 82%. Generally speaking, young people support it and older people are increasingly starting to agree. As far as political issues go, these numbers are overwhelming. In fact you’d be hard pressed to find any other election issue with such clear-cut, widespread support. Asylum seekers, taxes and funding for education are much more complex and controversial issues. (However, increased action on climate change is almost equally widely supported.)

So if Aussies broadly support marriage equality, how come there’s such a huge gap between our legislation and our beliefs?

Two words: Tony Abbott. Despite having a gay sister, last year the former prime minister threatened his colleagues with demotion to the back bench if they voted to legalise gay marriage in parliament. Instead he stipulated that his entire party voted against it. Basically, as a staunch conservative, he was hell bent on preventing gay marriage from being legislated while he was in power. But now it’s only a matter of time before the Australian government legalises gay marriage.

If Malcolm Turnbull wins at the election on July 2, he says he’ll have a plebiscite, which is basically where every person in the country gets to vote on the issue. This almost certainly means that gay marriage will be legalised. But holding a plebiscite is expensive for taxpayers and, for this reason, Labor and the Greens want to sort it out in parliament. Labor says if they win the election they’ll have a parliamentary vote on marriage equality within their first 100 days in power and, with the support of the Greens, they would most likely see have it legalised very soon. Regardless of the election result it appears that same-sex marriage will be legal by the end of the year.

While this is good news, on the world scale, we’re embarrassingly unevolved when it comes to marriage equality.

In the Netherlands, for example, homosexuals have been getting married since 2000. In South Africa, a country marred by apartheid and not often exemplified as progressive, marriage equality was legislated a decade ago. Our neighbour New Zealand got it done in 2013 and the USA and Ireland managed to do it last year. Twenty-two countries have done it now, but Australia still lags.

It’s high time that we acknowledged the universal right to love and support each other, for same-sex couples too. With any luck, 2016 will be the year we got it done, but the question remains, why did it take us so long?