Dream come true after tough debate
Decision will help people feel as worthy as their mates, says Mat Rowell
WHEN
I was a young person growing up in Tasmania I never believed I would ever have the opportunity to marry the person that I love. Once I worked out I was gay, and once I became comfortable in my own skin, and once the hard adolescent years were past, I still never believed marriage would be possible in my lifetime.
That’s a very difficult thing to get your head around as a young person. It means you always feel different, but worse, it means you feel lesser. Lesser than your siblings, friends and colleagues whose weddings we all go along to and where we celebrate, at the same time holding a niggling feeling of a lack of fairness.
Yesterday’s announcement that Australians have overwhelmingly voted to change the Marriage Act to allow LGBTIQ Australians to marry who they love changes that forever, with 61.6 per cent voting yes. In Tasmania 63.6 per cent of those who cast their vote, over 300,000 Tasmanians, voted yes, higher than the national average. In Denison, the electorate I live in, 73.8 per cent voted yes.
This process has been harrowing. I have felt vulnerable, fragile and at the last minute terrified that my views were out of step with the rest of the country. Putting my relationship and my overseas marriage to Antony through a public and at times toxic debate about the worth of my relationship has been hard.
It has felt like being back at school and being scared of my feelings and scared of being open about them.
I was in Sydney at a meeting across the road from the Yes campaign’s rally and we paused to hear the result. I have never seen such a reaction from a crowd and the tears of myself and my colleagues flowed, as they did for so many in the crowd.
If the Parliament now gets the job done, my marriage celebrated in New Zealand two years ago will be recognised in Australia. What it means for our community and our young people is that this will now become a regular, respected fact of life, not a pipe dream. Every young person at school, worried about their feelings, worried about their future not involving equal rights and access to institutions like marriage should now be able to feel as worthy as their mates.
We now need our political leaders to show some leadership and get this legislation passed. But it cannot be at the expense of our existing rights and protections. We should not trade off one win for reduced protections from discrimination. Tasmania has terrific anti-discrimination legislation and protections and to undermine these simply creates additional layers of fear and intolerance. Discrimination is harmful and there is no need for those protections to be reduced.
What this process has demonstrated is that Australians and Tasmanians are decent people. They have accepted that we are not the other. They have accepted that our brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, neighbours, friends, children’s best friends are worthy of a major change to provide access to an institution which many Australians use to celebrate their love. Marriage equality provides for a society and a culture which is about acceptance and not just tolerance and to those young people trying to work it out, this will make all the difference to their experience and to their well being.
I have written previously that my father-in-law was unable to travel when he became ill and passed away before he could see both his sons legally married in Australia. This is a common story. Marriage equality is not just for the couples, but also for families and friends.
In the end, now this debate and the survey of the legitimacy of my relationship is over, my family will hopefully celebrate our first Christmas where all the couples are recognised in the same way legally, not just in our hearts.