The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) congratulates the Australian Services Union on allowing members to express their views on marriage equality. With 70 percent of the membership in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry, the ASU joins a growing chorus line of non-LGBTIQ-specific membership-based organisations calling for change.
Political punters on the left and right agree that the ALP National Conference this December will be a key flashpoint in the campaign for marriage equality.
While many LGBTIQ organisations are mobilising their people, it is mainstream organisations that will play a key role in the campaign. It is too easy to be ignored when we campaign as a front of the ‘usual suspects’.
In the LGBTIQ community, we need to ally ourselves with community organisations, trade unions, business associations, progressive religious organisations, multicultural organisations, social clubs and even sporting groups.
Australia is organised. Every person is connected to everyone else through a web of relationships. We need to tap into this space to strengthen the campaign. We need to become more than just the ‘usual suspects’. Change means changing ourselves too.
Ten years has passed since the Netherlands became the first country in the world to create marriage equality, regardless of the sex or gender of one’s partner. This change sparked a chain reaction of bills tabled before various parliaments across the globe for and against marriage equality. Campaign organisations, for and against marriage equality, began to mobilise their people.
The campaign pitted religious conservatives against LGBTIQ organisations. This battle is not new, but the issue is different. Marriage equality is not like campaigning on suicide prevention or health rights. There are no statistics to show, no university studies to cite. This is about raw equality.
To win on this issue of relationship equality, we need to harness the power of our own relationships.
Mobilisation is not just about public demonstrations. It includes private conversations with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. If you are a member of a union or a business association, a church or a temple, a local sporting or knitting club, it’s time to step up.
Freedoms are won, not given. The work of the lobbyists at party conferences cannot effectively occur without the mobilisation of ordinary people.
Join the Marriage Equality Campaign. Send expressions of interest to [email protected]
Rathana Chea is co-convenor of the NSW Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby
I do agree with Rhatana that more groups need to get behind the campaign to win but we cannot forget the support we currently have on side and we cannot underestimate how much of an effect the campaign so far has had on Australian politics.
“It is too easy to be ignored when we campaign as a front of the ‘usual suspects’.” This is so offensive to the thousands of people across Australia of all different backgrounds, political beliefs & trade unionists that have been hitting the streets for marriage equality! I think the fact that this is even going to be an issue of debate at the ALP national conference wouldn’t have even come about without the pressure from below, the people who continue to come out on the streets to put pressure on the government, including many representatives from Trade Unions. Each rally has been endorsed by Trades Hall Council of trade unions and the ASU have been one of the main unions supporting the campaign, not just advertising the rallies on their website and newsletters but mobilising a contingent at the rally in Melbourne. And it’s not just the ASU either. The CFMEU have continued to play a role in the campaign organising a contingent at each of the Melbourne rallies as well as other trade unions.