Australia:
conservatives simply wear a different cloak. Julia Gillard, their Prime Minister who remains unmoved by the New Zealand example, gives gay, lesbian and bisexual people plenty of reasons to maintain a historically well-developed sense of oppression. Her continued opposition to same-sex marriage is nonsensical – the electorate is largely supportive – but it doesn't need to make sense. This is all about self-interested power, fear and lack of leadership. Simply, the ALP national executive controlling Gillard's views on this issue are as socially conservative as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who clings to the notion marriage is for one man, one woman. At least we can see where this capital-C Catholic is coming from. Both major parties are afraid of what the large pockets of voters in Queensland and western Sydney might think. Those voters are being sold intellectually short.
In New Zealand, it was the Labour Party that introduced the same-sex marriage bill, but conservative Prime Minister John Key backed it. Perhaps the "u" in NZ Labour stands for "us". In Australia, we call it the Labor Party, where the Catholic roots need a new dye job. Labor's failure to separate church and state is as pernicious as any such ideology lingering in Abbott, a former seminary trainee. So will Australia get same-sex marriage, joining New Zealand, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, nine US states, and soon, Britain and France? Not under Gillard. Not under Abbott. The country needs a change, but not simply of government. The Opposition's shadow minister for communications, Malcolm Turnbull, told Radio National in late 2011 he hadn't historically advocated same-sex marriage, but would now be willing to vote according to his constituency's wishes, "and I don't have any doubt that there's a large majority of people that support same-sex marriage". Labor's Employment Minister Bill Shorten personally supports same-sex marriage. Tony Abbott meanwhile thinks his sister Christine Forster is "courageous" for revealing herself to be a lesbian. He may think she's brave but he certainly doesn't consider her his equal. Julia Gillard, who's never believed in marriage for herself, wants to withhold it from others, because that's her Machiavellian way. She's painfully alert to misogyny, but is blind to ALP parliamentary homophobia.
Same-sex couples deserve health, happiness and to be part of society. Their children deserve to have parents supported by society. Same-sex marriage won't harm heterosexual marriages, and in the unlikely event they did, perhaps those unions weren't strong enough in the beginning. In that traditional Maori song, they got it dead right: I have written you a letter, and enclosed it with my ring / If your people should see it, then the trouble will begin. What, exactly, has Canberra got against happiness?
For those who want to know more about the song being sung: "Pokarekare Ana." Unofficially it is New Zealand's second national anthem. It is believed to have been communally written by Maori soldiers in training camp during World War I. Here are the lyrics and then a translation.
LYRICS
Pōkarekare ana, ngā wai o Waiapu
Whiti atu koe hine, marino ana e
E hine e, hoki mai ra, kamate ahau i te aroha e.
Tuhituhi taku reta, tuku atu taku rīni
Kia kite tō iwi, raruraru ana e.
E hine e, hoki mai ra, ka mate ahau i te aroha e.
TRANSLATION
Stormy are the waters on restless Waiapu
If you cross them, girl, they will be calmed
Oh girl, come back to me, my heart is dying of love for you.
I have written you a letter, and enclosed with it my ring,
So your people can see how troubled I am
Oh girl, come back to me, my heart is dying of love for you.