A right wing Australian senator’s bid to have a referendum on marriage equality has been voted down. The Government and the Greens halted the motion from anti-marriage equality Democratic Labor Party Senator John Madigan, which would have set up an inquiry into a referendum on same-sex marriage. Labor voted for the inquiry, much to the disappointment of marriage equality campaigners. “Polls show two thirds of Australians support marriage equality, but I fear a referendum would become a platform for fear and hatred as we saw last week in Croatia,” says Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome. “Never before has there been a referendum on marriage law, including when same-sex marriages were banned in 2004, so it is a double standard to have a referendum on allowing same-sex marriage.” Croome says fundamental human rights should not be decided by a show of hands. “There’s no point wasting parliament’s resources on an inquiry into a referendum that should and will never happen.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 10th December 2013 - 9:56am