For Julia.

Dear Julia,

The last time I sat down to do one of these was three months ago, when Miranda Devine took to the internet to essentially blame Penny Wong’s girlfriend’s pregnancy for the London riots. I remember a distinctly cleansing feeling as I hit the ‘publish’ button on that post, brought about mainly because I thought I had read the last opinion piece I was ever going to have to read that was going to make me, as a gay woman, feel like a second class citizen. I was wrong.

The damage you have done today is worse than anything I had ever thought you possible of inflicting. Miranda Devine and Jim Wallace were never going to stand alongside advocates of marriage equality in this fight, but you had a chance to. You had a chance and with your opinion piece in the Fairfax Media this morning serving as the final nail in the coffin of hope in this debate, you blew it.

Let’s take a moment and review my terminology there. You’ll notice that I say advocates of ‘marriage equality’ not ‘gay marriage’, because I believe in calling a spade a spade. This isn’t just about the rights of same-sex couples where marriage is concerned, but of any two consenting adults to marry if they so choose. Saying that members of the LGBT community can’t marry is as arbitrary and bluntly discriminatory as saying that two Brunettes can’t get married. By leaving the current definition of marriage unchanged, you are essentially suggesting that we are somehow not good enough to enter a monogamous relationship, for life, to the exclusion of others. NEWSFLASH: THAT’S ALL WE WANT TO FUCKING DO, JULIA. We aren’t asking you to allow us to marry eighteen people at once (though, given half a bottle of Gin and access to the cast of The L Word I might be willing to revise that sentiment). We aren’t asking you to allow us to marry our pets. Or our relatives. Or our toasters. We want to marry our partners, our confidents, our best friends. The people who make us laugh, who look after us when we’re sick, and who make our worlds a better place. Just like everybody else.

The vast majority of opponents to the movement cite protection of family values as a finite and irrefutable argument against allowing any change in the Marriage Act. Personally, I can’t think of a better example for any two people to set for their own children (and, potentially by extension, other children in their lives) than committing to each other wholly, publicly, and with the support of their family, friends and community. What are two gay men supposed to say to their child when he or she comes home from school asking why they aren’t married like all their friend’s parents? Surely it will make them feel more ostracised and confused when the devastating answer to that question is ‘because we aren’t allowed to be’.

With the world watching, you have chosen to essentially sidestep this issue by allowing it to fall to a conscience vote. Your opinion is that the Marriage Act should remain unchanged and this is your way of not having to take the heat for that opinion coming to bear all by yourself. I get that. It’s easier to point several of your fingers at all the other members of your party who will also vote against legislating for change in the Marriage Act than it is to have to answer for the decision as though it was yours alone. In an interesting twist though, your refusal to actually stand for anything (as you’re not even really standing for the Marriage Act in its current state with any conviction – if you were this wouldn’t be a matter of conscience) leaves me wondering if you even buy what you’re trying to sell any more yourself.

When you were sworn in as Prime Minister, you stood on the precipice of great change in this country. Change you could have been a catalyst for, and a driving force behind. Forget my sexuality for a moment: as an Australian woman, THAT is how I want the first female Prime Minister of this country to be remembered.

I know you still have it in you.

It’s never too late.

Prove me right.

Cheers,

Loz