Gillian Triggs blasts gov over marriage equality plebiscite (video)

Gillian Triggs has finished her five year term as head of the Human Rights Commission and is now free to pursue politics outside of that. In doing so she has joined a group of lawyers named "Two People" advocating for marriage equality:

Two people want to get married. The law says they cannot. That law is not ancient; it was made in 2004. Equality before the law is ancient. It’s as old as law itself. Older than marriage.

 This law is unequal. It discriminates. No legal principle explains why it should. All we seek is to restore equality. That can be achieved with the simplest change.

 In the Marriage Act, delete the words “a man and a woman” and replace them with “two people”. That’s it – the stroke of a pen. And two people who want to get married, can. Two People

Triggs is highly critical of the gov and their obsession with a plebiscite. In and interview with Buzzfeed:

She said it was her "personal view" that the plebiscite was being pushed by government MPs as a way for marriage equality to fail.

 "We do all sorts of things by a vote in parliament, sometimes they win, sometimes they fail," Triggs told BuzzFeed News. "Nonetheless that is their job.

 "To sidestep the issue, I suspect with the intention of defeating the exercise, that's a personal view, but nonetheless, sidestepping their responsibility and passing it onto the community, when this is the job of parliament, is very, very worrying for the entire democratic system."

 "When we see a group of parliamentarians say, 'Look we tried the plebiscite, this is not disloyalty to the party, we tried it, it didn't work, now let's try something else'," she said.

 "Bringing the task back to parliament again is a very important initiative." Buzzfeed   

Both the High Court and the senate agree with Triggs that it's the job of parliament to vote on the issue. 

Meanwhile in loony land, Abbott has come out with a totally bizarre reason why he doesn't agree with same sex marriage. If you can make the slightest bit of sense out of it you're doing better than me :s

The concept of marriage is between a man and a woman, preferably for life open to children, that long pre-dates our constitution, it long pre-dates our parliament, it long pre-dates the civil law, frankly. It is something that evolved many centuries ago to protect women and children in a world where they were much less secure than they are now. That's why I would be very reluctant to change. Buzzfeed

Like I said, it's just nonsensical. As if parents of whatever gender wouldn't do all they could to protect their partner and kids. 

It matters to 46,800 LGBT Australian couples (according to the last census) who can't marry because of the likes of Abbott.