A chance to support equality

A chance at equality

 

Encourage by Ireland referendum on 1/06/2015 Bill Shorten (Labor leader) introduced a bill into parliament that would allow marriage equality in Australia. He made a speech which was quite inspiring and the bill was seconded by Tanya Plibersek (Labor) after none of the LIB/Nat coalition would sign it despite calling for a bipartisan approach.

Bipartisanship is a political situation, especially in the context of a two-party system, in which opposing political parties find common ground through compromise.

Obviously there can be no compromise when it comes to equal rights, and calls for bipartisanship in this instance must mean that parties would not oppose equality for the sake of opposing the other political party. 

In a snub against every gay person and supporter of equal rights, the Lib/National seats in the parliamentary chamber were mostly empty during the bills introduction.

Equality should be the priority!

It should be noted that the Lib/Nats removed equality from the ACT (Australian Capital Territory), invalidating Australians marriages, saying that it would be addressed in federal parliament.
It should also be noted that before the election the Lib/Nats were saying that a free vote would occur on marriage equality.

 One wonders; Where is the bipartisanship? Where is the respect? The government still has time to do the right thing and represent Australia and change the laws back to how they were before 2004.

A poll conducted on behalf of the Liberal party found that 72% of Australians are not bigoted and support equality. Its well past time, lets get this thing done so we can move on to other issues. Lets stop wasting time, lets stop playing politics with peoples lives. There are no valid arguments against equality, so lets just do it.