Actually s51 sets out the legislative powers the Commonwealth took over from the sates at federation. Yes marriage is one of them, but a referendum cannot be held on the Marriage Act 1961. To change it requires an amendment raised in either house and passed as any other legislation is. Only the constitution can be changed by a referendum.
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As would a proper plebiscite. Hence why we ended up with a voluntary survey.
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Keysar Trad, the man who since 1998 has wanted a second wife, is pleased with the 75% no result in Blaxland and was surprised that it was so low.
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You’d think a guy like that would be all for SSM if it eventually delivers the so called slippery slope to polygamy that many in the No campaign have warned us of. 
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It looks like all the ads from the Coalition for Marriage were correct. My nephew just rang me from school. Now that same sex marriage is legal they are making the children wear strap-on dildos and chase each other around the playground for their sport period. They have also just announced that next year’s drama production is Brokeback Mountain. From next year the NSW HSC is offering 2 unit Lesbianism as a subject.
I should have listened to the ads - they were always playing during Judge Judy on Channel 10. I voted “yes” despite those angry women who were telling me that “It’s OK to vote No”. I can’t believe what’s happening.
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What was the mood on the 339?
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Your comment made me genuinely laugh out loud. I was on the 339 this morning. As the route goes through the electorates of Sydney and Wentworth I assume that over 80% of the people on the bus were happy.
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That’s not so. s51 simply provides the parliament with the power to make laws on marriage, without defining it. That is appropriate. There’s no need to change the constitution, so a referendum would not be applicable. John Howard explicitly put in the Marriage Act that marriage is heterosexual only because the constitution doesn’t say anything on it. That’s the legislation that the parliament will soon change.
I expect a High Court challenge on the basis that in 1901 marriage would have been understood to be between a man and a woman. We’ll see how that goes.
David Marr has an excellent piece in today’s Guardian. I think it just about sums up how many of us were feeling yesterday.
The result loomed as a verdict on Australia. It would put a figure on our commitment to fairness and good sense, to our freedom from old bigotry and even where we stand in the 21st century.
But this morning it suddenly felt personal. I had a nasty sense of waiting for my exam results. I haven’t felt that for more than 40 years. This was a national verdict about my lot, too. That fed my anger.
Turnbull is prepared to extend parliament past its scheduled finishing date in December to get the same-sex marriage legislation passed.
Are all the same-sex marriage advocates thanking Malcolm Turnbull after deriding him all year? Caroline Overington thinks they should.
For him insisting on an expensive and divisive survey that told us what every other poll and survey in recent times had already told us?
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Or, maybe not. In striking down the ACT’s same-sex marriage law in 2013 the court ruled unanimously that “marriage” in s51 of the constitution includes same-sex marriage. So there seems no prospect of a challenge succeeding.
Or spending 122 million dollars on a survey to placate the conservatives in his own party, who will still oppose the decision in parliament?
Anti SSM campaigner marries his partner on the day that the survey result was announced.
“It definitely hasn’t changed around my personal relationship with my fiancee,” Folau said.
“It hasn’t really affected me at all. That won’t change too much for me."
See? For “no” campaigners life still goes on… as everyone else said it would 
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A handy guide to the legislation process.
Edit: I didn’t know this, that Janet Rice is in a legal Australian same-sex marriage … because the man she married later transitioned and became a woman. They are still married but her wife can’t yet change her birth certificate that states she is male otherwise it would apparently invalidate the marriage.
It’s not an “excellent article” at all. It’s the height of hypocrisy to say we shouldn’t have had a postal vote, and then say how much you love the country again because of the result. The leftist commentariat all look like idiots. It is impossible for them to admit that Tony Abbott and the Liberals did this the right way - trust Australians to deliver the right outcome themselves.
What a bizarre reading of what happened. Sorry for you that you think an overwhelming public Yes vote is a “dark mark” on Australian history. Without Tony Abbott, there would not be that ‘ringing-endorsement-by Australia-feeling’ that you have right now.
Do you reckon they’re bigoted homophobes or not?
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