Take Action on the Marriage Act, now.

PM acts to ban gay marriage - news.com.au - 2004 May 27 floated past my attention. Now Gay marriage to be banned - theage.com.au - 2004 May 27 is also brought to my attention, and several people have posted on their LJ an urgent reminder that Labor appears to be about to support the ban.

Now, there are plenty of other issues with the Marriage Act, but gay marriage is a gimme. It affects heterosexual marriages not at all, and it legitimises a great deal of what already occurs, and corrects a fundamentally discriminatory position in our society. And no, a rose by any other name would not smell as sweet, since common law and legislation refers to "marriage", not "civil union". "Civil union" doesn't cut the mustard, unless we're talking about removing the institution of "marriage" entirely and rebadging the whole thing as "civil union", benefits and all.

So. If you support gay marriage, even a little bit, and you're an Australian Citizen (and a reminder there if you're going to be 18 years old soon and aren't on the electoral roll, sign up now, before the rolls are closed. Howard wants to close them the moment he calls an election, in order to prevent you from voting, because he knows you won't vote for him), write to at least two people:
Ms Nicola Roxon <Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au> (The Shadow Attorney General),
and your local member of the House of Representatives (See http://www.aec.gov.au/esearch/main.htm to figure out who this is, then jump back to http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/index.htm to get their contact details).

My own letter (please don't just copy it, write your own) is below.

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Dear Ms Roxon, Mr Danby and Mr Latham,

As you are the Shadow Attorney General, my Local Member and the Leader
of the Opposition, respectively, I am writing to you all to express my
deep concern about the Labor Party's apparent lack of response to the
Prime Minister's proposed changes to the Marriage Act.

I would like to start by saying that I was pleased when Mr Latham
became the Leader of the Opposition, and especially pleased when it
became clear that Mr Latham was a man of integrity and honesty,
willing to speak the simple truth in public, and especially to speak
out against unfair and intolerant policies.

I have been a regular Labor voter since I first became eligible to
vote 13 years ago. The primary reason I have done so and continued to
do so is simply this:

The Labor Party does not have within it a racist and religiously
intolerant group exercising a controlling opinion on the party's
morality.

The Liberal Party does, as exemplified in particular by the Lyons
Forum (See http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/lyons.html for detail).

So, it is unsurprising to me that the Prime Minister and the Liberal
Party is proposing a bill to quash the possibility of gay marriage and
gay adoption.

What is surprising to me is that the Labor Party appears to be poised
to fail to oppose this fundamentally discriminatory and intolerant
bill.

To me, this would signal a change in the Labor Party, a change that
would indicate to me that the Labor Party, too, is prepared or is
preparing to follow the Liberal Party line, in adopting racist and
religiously intolerant measures in order to capture the racist and
religiously intolerant vote.

This would strongly disappoint me, because it would mean that the
primary reason why I have voted Labor and continued to vote Labor
would be gone.

Sincerely,

[ real name ]

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[ real contact details ]