Many in Australia look to the use of the referendum in Ireland as an example of how its marriage equality debate might be resolved. But what worked well in Ireland might be very damaging in Australia.
Nothing was achieved in a Monday meeting between the government and Labor on the same-sex marriage plebiscite.
Dan Peled/AAP
We have reached the point of absurdity. Neither the government nor Labor can or wants to compromise on the same-sex marriage plebiscite. Yet they continue the charade. Nothing was achieved by or at Monday’s…
Heterosexual couples who believe in marriage equality, and the civil celebrants who marry them, are using wedding ceremonies to protest marriage law in Australia.
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Given the ubiquity of civil marriage and support for marriage equality, how do heterosexual brides and grooms who support marriage equality manage legal requirements at their weddings?
Fiona Nash said she understood the suicide rate in Ireland went down during the referendum to legalise same-sex marriage.
ABC Q&A
Regardless of whether the suicide rate went down, it is far too blunt an instrument to measure the potential distress same-sex marriage debates cause for those in the LGBTI community.
Supporters carry a banner during a rally for marriage equality held in Sydney.
Richard Milnes/Newzulu
More than two-thirds of voters oppose the government’s decision to give public funding to the yes and no campaigns in a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, according to an Essential poll.
The next president will have a unique opportunity to mould the Supreme Court bench.
Ken Hammond, US Department of Agriculture
With three current Supreme Court justices aged 78 or older and one seat on the court vacant, the next US president may end up nominating four justices in their first term.
Malcolm Turnbull introduced a bill for a same-sex marriage plebiscite to parliament on Wednesday.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Bill Shorten has now signalled he will kill the same-sex marriage plebiscite, but he seems determined to make it a slow death. As Shorten departed on Wednesday for Canada and the United States, Labor sources…
The government has introduced a bill into the parliament that provides the details and mechanics of the proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
While Australians finally have some detail of the proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage, there is no guarantee that the question will be put to the people on February 11 next year.
George Brandis called on Bill Shorten ‘to get out of the way’ to allow the plebiscite bill passage through the Senate.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The government’s proposed marriage plebiscite has been delivered a fresh blow with openly gay Liberal senator Dean Smith declaring he will not vote for it.
The LGBTI community fears the nastiness a plebiscite on marriage equality could bring forth.
AAP
In the first sitting of the new parliament, conservatives within the government have muscled a proposed amendment to the Racial Discrimination Act onto the agenda.
Free speech on an issue is a constructive idea, providing it is practised with responsibility.
AAP/Richard Milnes
Freedom of speech does not mean you can say anything to anyone, regardless of the damage it does – an important consideration in the debate over a same-sex marriage plebiscite.
A minister of religion is not obliged to solemnise any marriage.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Ministers of religion who support marriage equality would be able to challenge the Marriage Act in the High Court. They would stand a good chance of winning.
Since retiring from politics in 2012, former Greens leader Bob Brown has continued to offer sharp perspectives on issues of national debate.
Bob Brown said that while a plebiscite was the wrong way to go, without it ‘I think that down the line there’s three more years of waiting’.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Former Greens leader Bob Brown has said the door should be kept open for a plebiscite if that is the only way of achieving same-sex marriage in the foreseeable future.
Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity