Alex Greenwich An Australian parliamentary committee has reached a consensus view on legislation to legalise same-sex marriage, which will be revealed today. The House of Representatives social policy and legal affairs committee is about to table its report in parliament. The cross-party committee examined two private member's bills - one from Labor MP Stephen Jones and the other from Australian Greens Adam Bandt - which are before parliament. The committee received a record 276,000 responses during its inquiry. Australian Marriage Equality National Convenor Alex Greenwich says he hopes the report reflects the views of a majority of Australians and deals with the concerns of opponents of same-sex marriage "Over 170,000 Australians voiced support for marriage equality through this parliamentary process and we hope the report will reflect this overwhelming support for reform,” he says. "We also hope the report will put to bed the unfounded concerns of opponents of reform, for example by highlighting that there will be no obligation for any church to marry a same-sex couple if they do not wish to." Greenwich says he hopes the report will also encourage more MPs to support reform. "Once MPs realise they have nothing to fear from this reform, we are confident more will open their hearts and minds to the importance of marriage equality".
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 18th June 2012 - 11:42am