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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The person who introduced this stupid concept and has pitted community against community, family member against family member, friend against friend.
You want to know why I know this? I’ve overheard family members talking on the subject. If I had come out to them, they probably wouldn’t talk to me.
Having another opinion is not something I’d describe as “community against community or friend against friend”. The amazing thing about societies is that people have different views - and they get along. Amazing! Sorry you didn’t feel the love from the vast majority of the country.
That’s fine, and in my view a large portion (38%, thanks Mr Abbott) have taken a stance to deny homosexuals equal rights.
I’m not calling for anyone else to lose rights. I’m making my views clear, and criticising those which run against them.
You’re not going to win everybody, especially with all those “hordes” of religious types in Western Sydney. Sarcasm intended.
So 38% don’t want gay marriage. Who cares? It had nothing to do with rights.
I’m fairly sure that the liberty to marry someone is a right, and currently a right denied to gay people. The plebiscite is intended to only find out public opinion on the matter, but its architect doesn’t support gay marriage, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
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I have a suspicion that Sam Dastyari is either agnostic or an atheist. He describes himself as a ‘non-practicing Muslim’.
With the attitude of the Islamic culture towards apostates, I suspect there are many ‘closeted’ non-believers out there who simply can’t reveal what they truly believe, lest they be ostracized, or at worst - killed.
Ok, that was a misstatement. People can also be agnostic and be homophobic.
My point is: I’m not going to hate on Muslims specifically because they are Muslim. I (and hopefully others) will push back at homophobia in any community and not throw out babies with bathwater.