Friday, 26 August 2016

Greens to block plebiscite in senate! - Hooray!

*Update: Bill Shorten signals Labor likely to block marriage equality plebiscite, The Guardian
  
I completely agree with them too.

 The Greens have announced they will use their senate votes to block the legislation necessary to implement a plebiscite on marriage equality. After inviting people to give their views, a massive 83% not wanting them to support a plebiscite.

 There is now growing pressure on Turnbull to let the parliament do it's job and not be hijacked by the far right of his party. If he let his party have a free vote we could have marriage equality in a day.

 If Labor now also sides with the Greens then the plebiscite will be dead. Which will be a good thing. We would rather see the plebiscite dead than members of the LGBT community from suicide.

This from the email:
Dear Peter, 

We just announced that the Greens will block the proposed plebiscite on marriage equality in the Senate. 

Australia is ready for marriage equality. We don’t need an unnecessary, divisive and expensive vote that could be ignored by the hard right of the Coalition. 

We could take this important step towards equality next week if Turnbull would just let Parliament do its job. 

This was not an easy decision. If the Liberals and Nationals continue to deny their members of Parliament a free vote it could delay marriage equality for several years. So, we asked all of you what you thought we should prioritise and the message was clear – 83% of us said we should not support a plebiscite in parliament at all. Not only because it could be very harmful, but because it’s the wrong way to achieve this reform. 

John Howard didn't need a plebiscite to change the Marriage Act to deny marriage equality and we don't need one now to change it back. 

Maybe the most amazing thing that came out of our survey was that if this plebiscite is forced on us, more than 60% of us would still go out and campaign for a ‘yes’ vote. That’s exactly the brave defiance that defines this community. 
We have already seen the kind of vile hate speech coming from the Australian Christian Lobby who would play a central role in opposing marriage equality for a plebiscite vote. Such vile and repulsive accusations against the LGBT on a national scale will cause havoc within the LGBT community in Australia, and there is consensus that it will cost lives.

I hope now that Labor will stand with the Greens on this.

The lives in our community are far more important than our right to marry. It's a tragedy that we have to chose between the two. 





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