Yes Yes Yes: Australia's Journey to Marriage Equality - Softcover

Greenwich, Alex; Robinson, Shirleene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1742235999 ISBN 13: 9781742235998

Publisher: NewSouth, 2019

Synopsis

Written by two advocates intimately involved in the struggle for marriage equality, this book reveals the untold story of how a grassroots movement won hearts and minds and transformed a country. It is based on personal memories and more than forty interviews with key figures and everyday advocates from across Australia. It covers the movement’s origins in 2004, when the Marriage Act of 1961 was amended to exclude same-sex couples, through to the unsuccessful High Court challenge, a public vote in 2017 and the Parliamentary aftermath. 

About this title

About the Author

Alex Greenwich was a co-chair of the successful YES campaign. Alex is also the Independent Member for Sydney in the New South Wales Parliament. Shirleene Robinson is the Director, national spokesperson and NSW co-coordinator for the YES campaign. She is a historian at Macquarie University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Yes Yes Yes

Australia's Journey to Marriage Equality

By Alex Greenwich, Shirleene Robinson

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Copyright © 2018 Alex Greenwich and Shirleene Robinson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-74223-599-8

Contents

Introduction, 
The journey begins, 
Building support, 
Breaking through, 
The power of marriage, 
Rainbow warriors, 
Weddings on Australian soil, 
Communities and corporates, 
Lights on, hopes fade, 
Early days of preparing for a plebiscite, 
The plebiscite is voted down, 
Uncertain future, 
The High Court, 
Campaign headquarters, 
Australia campaigns, 
Reinforcements, 
Results day, 
The Senate makes history, 
The House finally represents, 
To have and to hold, 
Sources, 
Acknowledgments, 
Notes, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The journey begins

In 2017, the Australian campaign for marriage equality was all-consuming and inescapable. The pressure was unrelenting and the stakes extremely high. Media scrutiny was intense as advocates embarked on a High Court challenge to stop a postal survey and then had to campaign across the country to win an untested national postal vote on human rights. Losing would have been devastating, setting back the cause of LGBTIQ rights for, arguably, at least a decade. Under this pressure, more Australians than ever before came forward, determined to do all they could to see marriage equality achieved.

It would do a disservice to history, though, to suggest that marriage equality was achieved solely as a result of the events of 2017. Its success was built on the efforts of those from across the LGBTIQ community and our allies who gave so much in earlier decades and those who laboured tirelessly to build community support for marriage equality from 2004 onwards. Through persistence and heroism over time, the world that gay men and lesbians occupied began to change. While reform for transgender, gender diverse and intersex people has been much slower, and there is still more to be done, we have been encouraged by witnessing increased awareness and advocacy across these areas.

In 2018, as we had a conversation in the aftermath of the marriage equality campaign, Peter Black, the Queensland director of Australian Marriage Equality (AME), emphasised this point. 'There is no way that we would have won this campaign, or this campaign could have even made sense, were it not for those people who fought so hard, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, but even going back before that. We always need to remember that.' We owe an enormous debt to those who came out and were open about their sexuality or gender identity in earlier decades, and to our allies who have stood alongside us while working for equality and challenging social and legal prejudice.

The origins of the marriage equality movement drew from the efforts of those who had courageously been advocating for the most basic of rights since the 1970s and even earlier. Until the 1960s and 1970s, homosexuality could potentially result in forced medical treatment such as aversion therapy. Male homosexuality was criminalised in parts of Australia until 1997 and Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen even tried to criminalise lesbianism and ban gay bars in the state in the 1980s. The arrival of AIDS on Australian shores in the 1980s meant a generation of the LGBTIQ community – and particularly gay men – lost friends and lovers. Larry Galbraith, former editor of the Sydney Star Observer and senior policy officer to Sydney's lord mayor, Clover Moore, remembers:

Many gay men who fell ill found that their families refused to acknowledge their partners. Their partners were denied access to them in hospital, were not welcome at their funerals and, as a result, were not able to properly grieve. This lack of recognition had concrete impacts as well. Surviving partners frequently faced challenges in accessing their partner's estate. This could leave them in a precarious financial position, and in some cases, forced out of their shared home.

Marriage as an issue became publicly visible in Australia later than many other matters that affected the LGBTIQ community. Through necessity, earlier activists had to focus on decriminalisation, the struggle against prejudice and discrimination at work and in the community, the fight for relationship recognition under a range of state and federal laws, and contending with the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Larry Galbraith believes that these campaigns were all-important in leading to the marriage equality movement. He says, 'The experience gained in campaigning for same-sex relationship recognition was invaluable in achieving marriage equality. De-facto same-sex relationship recognition also highlighted the inequality that remained and galvanised those who refused to accept this unequal status'.

The movement towards marriage equality took time to develop in Australia. There were many activists who did not view marriage as a priority or saw it as contradicting gay liberationist and feminist thought, which had emphasised the oppressive nature of marriage as an institution. Australian legislation recognising same-sex relationships was far from perfect but it was further progressed than United States legislation. Australia was actually one of the earliest countries to allow migration on the basis of de-facto same-sex relationships.

LGBTIQ couples have engaged in marriage-like rituals well before same-sex marriage was legally possible. There are examples of male couples using the language of commitment and eternal bonds in convict and colonial society. There are recorded accounts from as early as the 1920s of LGBTIQ people engaging in ceremonies akin to marriage in Australia. Many activists from the 1970s remember attending same-sex commitment ceremonies. The Metropolitan Community Church in Sydney conducted several in this era. As greater emphasis is put on uncovering previously hidden histories of LGBTIQ people, more and more accounts from the past will be unearthed.

Many Australians first considered the issue of marriage equality in February 1998. A journalist from the Daily Telegraph had threatened to out high-profile doctor Kerryn Phelps and her partner, Jackie Stricker, after finding out the two women had recently married in a deeply meaningful but legally unrecognised Jewish religious ceremony in New York. Rather than hide their relationship or refuse comment, the couple decided that by being open about it and discussing it with the media, they could push for social reform and provide young LGBTIQ people with a positive example of a happy same-sex relationship. This took real courage and it had costs for them both. However, they tell us that they received many heartfelt and moving letters from across the LGBTIQ community from people who had been given hope after they shared their story. The visibility of Kerryn and Jackie's relationship was a very important step in growing mainstream support.

It was in 2004, though, that a formal and organised marriage equality movement emerged in this country. The legislation of marriage equality in provinces in Canada, starting with Ontario, from 2003 onwards, was a particularly significant turning point as Canada did not require couples who wished to marry to be residents. Once this option was available, Australian couples began taking it up.

In 2004, two Melbourne-based couples, Jacqui Tomlins and Sarah Nichols, and Jason and Adrian Tuazon-McCheyne, who had married in Canada, prepared to take a case to the Victorian Family Court in order to clarify whether their marriages were recognised in Australia. The existing Australian Marriage Act at that time did not specifically preclude the recognition of same-sex couples.

On 27 May 2004, before the Victorian Family Court hearing, which had been scheduled for 23 August 2004, the Howard Government introduced the Marriage Amendment Bill 2004 into the House of Representatives to define marriage as between a man and a woman and to prevent same-sex marriages conducted overseas from being recognised in Australia. Indeed, the Howard Government was so keen to alter the existing legislation that it introduced two Bills. The second came after Labor indicated it would not support a clause in the first piece of legislation to prevent same-sex couples from adopting overseas and a Senate Inquiry had been proposed.

On 8 August 2017, John Howard told the Australian that he had been motivated to change the Marriage Act 1961 after realising that couples who had married overseas might be able to have their marriages recognised in Australia. 'What we didn't want to happen in 2004 was for the courts to start adjudicating on the definition of marriage because that was a real threat in 2004 because some people who had contracted same sex marriages in another country had the capacity to bring their issues before courts in Australia.'

Some more perceptive observers had been concerned that this change was coming and in some ways, Howard's actions were the catalyst for the marriage equality movement. Bob Brown, an openly gay Greens Senator from Tasmania, was in Federal Parliament as the change loomed. He remembers an early meeting with Rodney Croome, who had led the campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania, which achieved victory in 1997. Regarding marriage equality, Bob Brown recalls:

The feeling was that even the LGBTIQ community wasn't ready for it yet. They'd been taken by surprise and hadn't had time to have a debate so we had to get that debate. I knew that in Parliament, you are always outflanked if you don't have a community that's up and campaigning. That goes back to my environmental campaigning in the 1980s. We needed to get the crowd roaring about equal marriage.

Rodney had been arrested and gaoled as part of his advocacy in Tasmania and had also taken a case to the High Court of Australia and to the United Nations to push for the reform. When it appeared that the LGBTIQ community was going to be targeted with anti-marriage legislation, Rodney took the lead in organising a response. From the start of 2004, he had publicly argued that opposition to same-sex marriage was going to be used an issue to unite conservative politicians and wedge Labor.

In the early 2000s, Rodney's internet blog on LGBTIQ issues was one of the few ways that activists within Australia were able to communicate with each other and keep informed about issues that affected them. In 2004, a number of people from across Australia made contact with Rodney about the issue of marriage. He organised a telephone conference for 22 June from the offices of Labor's Duncan Kerr, the Federal Member for Hobart.

A handful of advocates from across Australia – and the LGBTIQ community – dialled in to the call with Rodney, including Damien and Graham Douglas-Meyer from Perth; Peter Furness, Luke Gahan, Morrison Polkinghorne, Robert Carmack, Peter Fitzpatrick and Michael True from Sydney; Iain Clacher, Geraldine Donoghue and Neil from Brisbane; and Jen Van-Achteren and Martine Delaney from Hobart.

On that first phone call, the participants decided to form a national lobby group to advocate for marriage equality. This decision took real courage. Not only was mainstream support for marriage equality still elusive, there were many in the LGBTIQ community who were yet to be convinced. There were some on that call who would be immediately affected by any possible changes to legislation. Damien and Graham Douglas-Meyer had married in March 2004 at Toronto City Hall. Luke Gahan was also planning to marry his partner.

On that first phone call, Luke Gahan from Sydney and Geraldine Donoghue from Brisbane were elected as the first national convenors and media spokespeople. Geraldine had needed a little prompting from Rodney, as she was concerned that she did not have any political experience, but he convinced her that being passionate without being partisan about an issue was actually an advantage. Luke also had to break the news to his partner, whose first reaction was 'How am I going to tell my parents this?' Luke remembers coming up with the group's name, Australian Marriage Equality, 'on the floor of my bedroom in my apartment in Sydney with the landline sitting on the floor writing down possible acronyms'.

Geraldine emphasises that Rodney was central to establishing an organised movement. He was 'so generous with his time' and they 'relied on him so much. It would not have been possible without him. He started conversations, pulled us together, got the ball rolling and kept it rolling'. We have both worked with Rodney as part of the campaign for marriage equality and acknowledge the tenacity and deep conviction that kept him working on this cause from 2004 all the way through until 2017.

During the course of writing this book, we had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Luke and Geraldine about what their journey and involvement was like. Both were young when they assumed the roles of national convenors but they treated the cause in front of them very seriously. Luke was only twenty-three at that time and Geraldine twenty-seven. Luke had grown up a Baptist with a keen appreciation of the social meaning of marriage. He had some experience with lobbying, having previously been a member of the Labor Party and having served the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby as treasurer. A cruise to the west coast of Mexico with his partner in 2004, with a number of North Americans on board the ship, had first exposed him to the concept of marriage equality. At the time of AME's first telephone meeting, he was engaged and was planning to travel to Canada to marry.

Geraldine had spent most of her childhood on the Gold Coast before moving to Brisbane for university. She had gone to a school where it was 'the worst thing in the world to be called lesbian'. At the age of twenty, though, she started to become aware of her sexuality. Although her extended family had a conservative background, she had developed an awareness of social justice growing up. She had known gay men through her family's friendship circles as a child and although she saw these men were in some ways treated differently to others, it helped her enormously later as she dealt with her own sexuality to know that other gay people existed.

In 1997, while at university, she met Beck, the woman who is still her partner today, after asking to borrow a pen. The two ended up falling madly in love. Having previously been in heterosexual relationships, Geraldine soon realised that many people viewed her same-sex relationship as something lesser. She had always been vocal within her friendship circle about marriage and equal rights but 'wouldn't have called [herself] political before the Amendments in 2004'.

On 28 June 2004, after the phone hook-up earlier in the week and the election of Luke and Geraldine as the two national convenors, AME announced its formation with a press release. Luke remembers 'that was the founding of AME. Very casual. Very sort of grassroots really'. Luke is also pleased that the group included representation from across the LGBTIQ community.

The first press release AME issued announced that the group intended to campaign for equality under Australia's marriage laws. It listed two major tasks that lay ahead. The first was to gather submissions for the planned Senate Inquiry. The second was to 'build strong representative structures for AME so that it has the support and resources necessary to advocate, lobby and educate effectively during what will be a long-haul campaign'. Few could have estimated just how drawn out the journey would be. Luke remembers the press did not cover the release in 2004. 'I don't think anyone thought it was interesting.'

From the outset, even before the Marriage Act 1961 was amended, advocates knew a positive tone was essential if they were going to convince others that marriage equality mattered. In one of his earliest speeches, at a rally organised by Community Action Against Homophobia in Sydney on 25 July 2004, Luke conveyed the message that the best way to counter attacks is to 'go out this week to your places of work, education, your places of entertainment, shopping and even worship and let people know about your friends and our special message of love, family, commitment and equality. As you have heard, our message is a positive message, rather than a message of fear and hate'.

Tanya Plibersek, the Federal Labor Member for Sydney, also spoke at this rally and asked the crowd to make submissions to the pending Inquiry. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore also spoke, pointing out that the federal government's claims of protecting traditional marriage were similar 'to the idea last century that denying women the vote protected democracy'.

As well as introducing a positive tone from the outset, the AME team was influenced by international LGBTIQ rights developments, particularly in the US. Iain Clacher, one of the founding members, would produce an e-journal opinion piece only two days after the first phone meeting, considering the conservative case for marriage equality. His piece concluded: 'As much as our politicians hope it will go away, gay marriage is an issue that's here to stay'. Iain made a significant contribution to the community in Queensland, and continues to be remembered fondly after he passed away of a heart attack in 2009.

Efforts to prevent the Marriage Act 1961 from being amended were ultimately unsuccessful. On 4 August 2004, before the planned Senate Inquiry could proceed, Nicola Roxon, Labor's shadow attorney-general, appeared at a conference for an organisation called the National Coalition for Marriage and announced that the Labor Party would support Coalition changes to the Marriage Act of 1961 to prevent marriage equality.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Yes Yes Yes by Alex Greenwich, Shirleene Robinson. Copyright © 2018 Alex Greenwich and Shirleene Robinson. Excerpted by permission of University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
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Edition details

• Publisher: NewSouth
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1742235999
• ISBN 13: 9781742235998
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336