It’s insane, but somehow Australia doesn’t yet have marriage equality — and they might not for many more years, due to an acute lack of political leadership.
Now, the country’s first openly gay Aboriginal legislator is expressing his (entirely justified!) exasperation with his dumb colleagues. His name’s Chansey Paech, and he gave a great speech this week to the Northwest Territory parliament:
“I am young, I am gay, I am black: a true-blue Territorian… I am a Centralian man. I am the nation’s first openly gay Indigenous parliamentarian. I am eternally proud of who I am and where I come from. I own it and wear it with pride. … I look forward to the day when this country will recognise my rights as equal rights, when I too can marry in my country, on my country, as a recognised first Australian.”
In addition to fighting for LGBT equality, he’s also fighting for Aboriginal equality. The Australian Constitution doesn’t quite recognize indigenous people, and so they get substandard treatment from the white colonists.
Those white colonists, incidentally, are the ones standing in the way of marriage equality. For a time, politicians were promising a popular vote on marriage — but the catch was that it was going to be non-binding, and extremely expensive. In other words, it would be a ton of money spent with no demonstrable outcome. The Defining Marriage podcast’s been covering the frustrating news for months.
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At that, LGBT Australians protested that the politicians should actually, you know, do their jobs and pass laws instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to punt important questions to voters. So now to popular vote idea looks like it’s pretty dead; and various marriage bills are stalling in Parliament because everyone’s afraid to bring them to a vote — even though an overwhelming majority of Australians support marriage equality. Great job, Australians, no wonder England sent you to an island.
Kangol
More power to him, to Aboriginal/Black Australians, to LGBTQ Australians of all races, colors, creeds, and backgrounds, and to full equality for all Australians under the law.
Daggerman
..this matter is so really annoying try. Australia have an amazing amount of beauty within their land as big as it is, along with many fantastic adventures. Please don’t be stupid by ignoring the truth…the fact of life…
Captain Obvious
Of course this article gets very little attention because it’s about white homophobes and there are no blacks to blame for everything.
GayEGO
What is going on here? Why doesn’t Australia want to join the rest of us? Australia will be given sanctions by western countries if it does not step up to the plate and do their job to legalize Marriage Equality!
joeyty
Going by looks he must be about one/tenth aboriginal.
jdboston617
@joeyty: Going by… your comment, you’re a bigot who missed the whole point of the article and his position.
Kangol
@joeyty: You have no clue. Zero.
joeyty
@Kangol: Then you tell me what percentage of aborigine he is.
joeyty
@jdboston617: Didn’t miss it in the slightest. Maybe you’re missing the fact that a full-blood aborigine would not be considered a gay icon in that looks-centered culture, and the fact that someone with so little aboriginal blood still being legally considered one of them shows it’s seen as a taint.