Aussies Jess Lawrence and Kate McClenahan won a Gay Ski Week competition to marry in Queenstown last year Australian marriage equality campaigners are asking their Senate to recognise the marriages of same-sex couples who have tied the knot overseas. National Director of Australian Marriage Equality Rodney Croome has spoken at a hearing into a Greens bill that would recognise overseas same-sex marriages. "Every politician who says they respect the institution of marriage should show respect for the legal overseas marriages of Australian same-sex couples by voting to recognise these marriages,” he told the hearing. "It is an affront to those couples who have married overseas, to the countries under whose laws they married and to the institution of marriage, to treat overseas same- sex marriages like they never happened." Under the Australian Marriage Act there is an explicit prohibition on the recognition of overseas same-sex marriages, put in place ten years ago under the Howard Government. Since then as many as 1,400 Australian same-sex couples have married overseas, including almost 300 in New Zealand.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 21st August 2014 - 1:12pm