Editor’s Letter – Australia, We Love You

Voting on whether gay people should be allowed to get married is like voting on whether blonde people should be allowed to eat cheese; it makes no sense. It goes without saying, to anyone logical and intelligent, that LGBT people should be allowed to get married. Yes, there’s the religious argument, but if we’re making gay marriage illegal on those grounds, we should also ban divorce, sex before marriage and erm, eating meat.

Also, the further society advances, the less sense marriage makes. I personally believe it’s totally unnecessary and antiquated, and that it’ll hopefully be gone in a generation or two. But until then, while it’s an integral part of life and society, gay people should have the same access to it as straight people, obviously.

Yesterday, it was announced that Australia voted in support of equal marriage, with 61.6% voting yes and 38.4% voting no. 12.6 million people sent in their answers. That’s a vast 78.5% per cent of the population. A higher percentage than the amount of Brits who took part in the Brexit vote, and even higher than the amount of Americans who voted in the presidential elections.

Despite the mercifully positive results of the vote, it’s raised some interesting questions about how these issues are handled in government. When officials pass a vote over to the public, it’s a sign of cowardly governing. Politicians don’t want their hands dirtied by supporting the wrong side, so they leave it up to the public. But there’s a high price to pay – namely, animosity and division. Much of which is directed towards an already vulnerable minority community.

Either way, we’re happy that LGBTQ Australians will now hopefully be able to live their lives with more rights, more opportunities and less judgement.

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