Take Action on the Marriage Act, now.

[thorfinn]

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.

---

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 ]

--
[ real contact details ]

Comments

[drreagan.livejournal.com]

Is the ALP taking a leaf out of Tony Blair's book and re-inventing itself as a New Labour type thing, moving much further to the right to usurp the centrist position and take hold of all the swinging conservative voters, while still trading on its labour roots to retain its old supporters?

[thorfinn]

Pretty much. They've been doing that for a long while now.

[drreagan.livejournal.com]

Ah - am a bit isolated from Aus politics over here in the UK - we get snippets about what wars little Johnny is tagging along with, and which asylumn seekers he's claiming are throwing children overboard, and thats about it.

[thorfinn]

You'll not have heard that he disbanded ATSIC, and is working on gutting ATSILS (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service) then.

More bad news

[gwyryon.livejournal.com]

Sorry I can't help, but god knows I'm with you from here.
Death to the Infidels!
(of course by infidels I mean fools and by death I mean elimination from my personal catalogue of people currently worthy of respect)

Re: More bad news

[thorfinn]

Thanks for the support!

Damn! Sometimes living in the country sucks!

[politas.livejournal.com]

My local member is a National, so it's pointless writing to him. "Dear local member, I didn't vote for you, and I'd just like to let you know that if you go along with your party on this issue, I'll never vote for you in the future either!" To which his response will of course be "So?"

Re: Damn! Sometimes living in the country sucks!

[thorfinn]

You don't have to tell him that you never voted for him... And you never know, maybe he has a gay family member, and your letter could be the thing that pushes him across the floor to make a conscience vote.

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

Nice letter. :)

Far more along the lines of sweet persuasion than mine tend to be. I tend to tell my representatives what I think and ask them to represent me rather than appealing to both their better instincts and politics.

This is going to be interesting...

[thorfinn]

*grin* I've been hanging about in the company of Diplomacy players, and was for a while playing a fair bit myself. Some of those skills rub off. There's multiple layers to convince: one is that the letter adds to statistical data ; two is that the person who reads the statistical data has to be convinced to add it to the stats ; three is that hopefully the letter is convincing enough that it could get passed to the actual PM in question for them to actually read.

As for interesting, yes. It is going to be.

[baralier.livejournal.com]

I like that.

I'm going to pimp your page out. Having all the relevant government contact links helps enormously.

[thorfinn]

Coolio. And thanks.

[shocko.livejournal.com]

Good work, mate.

People have fired up on Melbourne_Goths as well - I've posted my letter for all to see.

And I think it's important to write to your local member, regardless of their political affiliation - they have to be made aware that this isn't just an issue for the "latte-sipping" seats.

[thorfinn]

I suspect that the meme-wave that hit me about it (causing me to spin the meme and write my letter and this post) originated on melbournegoths. And I agree completely on the writing to Local Member thing.

[yak-boy.livejournal.com]

Done.

I'd suggest also writing to the PM, if it'd make the slightest bit of difference.

[thorfinn]

It won't, which is why I didn't suggest it. This (and other recent actions like dismantling ASTIC and beginning the process of trying to dismantle ATSILS - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service) is the Lyons Forum getting it's last kicks in to try and enforce their "morality" on the rest of Australia, before they get kicked out of Government. It doesn't matter a toss to them if they lose votes over it, I think they've decided "we're going to lose, so time to rape the laws for what we can get."

[my-ichiban.livejournal.com]

ok so
i am gonna get some letter writing done tomorrow

the more this sht happens, the less comfortable i feel living here

and i HATE feeling like that..