queer rights

More than 1000 Sydneysiders hit the streets on May 12 demanding equal marriage rights, but prominent left-wing journalist John Pilger criticised the march in his recent article “Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue”.

The Campbell Newman Liberal National Party (LNP) government has wasted no time in launching an all-out attack on gay rights and on community services in the state. The May 20 Courier Mail reported that the government is preparing to overturn the civil unions law passed under the previous Labor government early this year.

In the week Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he ordered bombing attacks on Yemen, killing a reported 63 people, 28 of them children. When Obama recently announced he supported same-sex marriage, American planes had not long blown 14 Afghan civilians to bits.

In both cases, the mass murder was barely news. What mattered were the cynical vacuities of a political celebrity, the product of a zeitgeist driven by the forces of consumerism and the media with the aim of diverting the struggle for social and economic justice.

Melbourne, May 12. Photos by Ali Bakhtiavandi

Historians will look back at this year’s two parliamentary inquiries into marriage equality as the beginning of the end of the religious right’s disproportionate influence on Australian politics.

On April 13, the Senate marriage equality inquiry announced it had received 75,000 submissions with 44,000 or almost 60% in favour.

Community Action Against Homophobia released the statement below on May 10.

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Marriage equality advocates are preparing to hit the streets across Australia on Saturday May 12 in a national day of protest, just as US President Obama declares his support for equal marriage rights.

Socialist Alliance gay and lesbian rights spokesperson Rachel Evans spoke in Sydney on April 24 at a rally calling to free accused WikiLeaks’ source Private Bradley Manning from prison in the US, where he is being held in solitary confinement. The protest was part of an international day of protest for Manning, who faces a court martial and possible life in prison if convicted. Evans’ speech is below.

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Equal marriage rights supporters rallied at Margaret Court's Victory Life Centre on April 24. The centre hosted an anti-equal marriage event that evening.