On marriage equality
Meredith Williams writes: Re. “Passage of Same-sex Marriage Bill through the Senate without amendments” (Wednesday)
Thank goodness the Senate has acted decisively to pass the Same-Sex Marriage Bill without amendments, thus preventing one form of discrimination being replaced by another. Religious freedom is already sufficiently guaranteed and fully practised in this country. Inviting people into new forms of discrimination by legislating to allow them is counter-productive, and flies in the face of our open and inclusive society. Let’s live and let love.
James Richards writes: Re. “Passage of Same-sex Marriage Bill through the Senate without amendments” (Wednesday)
Any Senator who’s STATE voted yes should have voted accordingly, similarly the house of Reps should obey the will of their electorate. I know this will annoy a couple of ALP Members, but the right to a conscience vote was forfeited by the vote on the postal survey.
Re James Richards’ comment. No, sorry, the postal survey applies only to those people who wanted a postal survey. Those who wanted a conscience vote have now jumped through all the hoops to get a conscience vote.
Any senator “whose” state voted yes. Not “who’s”, which means “who is”. I assume Crikey has no proofreaders or someone would have corrected this error.
As Churchill remarked re the US, “they always do the right thing, but only after having exhausted all the alternatives.”