Ruling party refuses vote on gay marriage bill

Australia’s ruling party has rejected a push to allow lawmakers to decide whether the country should recognize gay marriage, continuing a bitter political stalemate over the divisive reform. The conservative Liberal Party-led coalition was narrowly re-elected in July 2016 with a promise to let voters decide whether Australia should recognize samesex marriage through a popular vote. But the Senate would not allow the so-called plebiscite, which would have cost 160 million Australian dollars, and the result could have been ignored by lawmakers when deciding how to vote on gay marriage legislation in Parliament. Liberal Sen. Dean Smith, a gay man who opposed legalizing same-sex marriage when he was appointed to the Senate in 2012, has drafted a bill to allow gay marriage now and wants his fellow Liberal lawmakers to be allowed to vote on it according to their consciences rather than according to party policy. “It’s time for the party to put the matter to rest once and for all,” Smith told reporters before the meeting. But a crisis meeting of Liberal lawmakers decided to try again to persuade the Senate to endorse the plebiscite before Parliament considers voting on legislation. The rejected plebiscite bill will be reintroduced to the Senate this week. Voting on the plebiscite would be compulsory and failure to vote would be punishable by a fine. If the Senate again rejected it, the party would propose a voluntary postal plebiscite in which voters mail in their opinions instead of using ballot boxes as a cheaper option that would not need the Senate to approve the expense.