As gays and lesbians in Australia we still don’t have the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts. Legally we are still very much second class citizens before the law and most of this lack of status boils down to the fact that our right to sign up to the system is non-existant.

This is surely discrimination of both an in-direct and direct manner under the Anti-Discrimination (2003;2003) act which states that " direct discrimination occurs if a person treats, or proposes to treat, someone with an attribute less favourably than the person treats or would treat someone without that attribute, or with a different attribute, in the same or similar circumstances" (15).

Indirect discrimination on the other hand "occurs if a person imposes, or proposes to impose, a requirement, condition or practice—that someone with an attribute does not or cannot comply with" (15). The act also makes it clear that "in determining whether or not a person discriminates, the person's motive is irrelevant" (16).

However as we all know legal loop holes are the breeding ground of our conservative nation, despite it's claims otherwise. As lesbians and gays, we don't have the same rights as our hetero friends when it comes to superannuation, health insurance, veteran's entitlements, immigration, taxation, adoption and access to leave!

For us, this has never been the lucky country, instead legislation purposely defines a spouse as heterosexual which is obviously exclusory and utilises both indirect and direct forms of discrimination, but alas we are still living in the dark ages where gender is a pre-packaged product of religious zealots out to conserve "human nature" in the name of a supposedly all-loving god, except if your gay, had an abortion, or female.

It is true that some people believe that the desire of gay and lesbians to enter into marriage embodies the values we should reject, such that marriage involves adhering to the patriarchal norm where the woman, like slaves once did surrenders her name, her story and any autonomous identification to her husband and his history; and that marriage itself is an institution based on religious and moral attitudes that are outdated, and bare no real-life significance, such as "to love, honour and obey", which unless you're into S&M, obey isn't something anyone should do!

Commitment ceremonies offer an alternative for those couples looking to celebrate their love in a marriage-esque way without the legal ramifications, which some would indeed rather do without. At the end of the day marriage is about commitment and sharing your life together, so if at the very least all we can do is throw a party, I say embrace the baby steps because every Government has to grow up one day, even ours. Ultimately though, this should be a question of choice and respect for human love, rather than ideologies based on long surpassed paradigms of supposed superiority such as the heterosexual nuclear family which can be hardly held up as a utopia anymore considering one in three marriages end in divorce, and the rate is climbing everyday.

Whether or not you see fit to sign up to system should not be the province of governmental decision, their right to invade our private lives is ever increasing and somewhere, all over the world we are shouting stop, in the name of love, before the world falls down in a fire of religious doctrine and we forget that under all these rules and regulations, everyone just wants to be loved and no-one has the right to tell anyone who they should or should not love based on their sexuality, lesbian, gay, straight or otherwise. May imperialism of all leanings flounder and equality flourish, it's our only hope.

Tags: gay marriage