Abstract

Huggins, AK When the debate about gay marriage really started to gain some momentum in Australia, probably a year or two before the last Labor Party Conference, I predicted amongst some of my gay friends that, as we got closer to a vote or other defining moments in this process, people and organisations would start 'crawling out of the woodwork' with distasteful, even despicable ways to demonise same-sex partnership and indeed gay people generally. I was right. I also mentioned to my friends that in Sydney, Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Jensen would wait just before any parliament vote to politicise their pulpits by locking in the federal Liberal vote using their lap boy Tony Abbott to deny a conscience vote amongst his party colleagues. I was right again. I also said that any attempt by a State or Territory to pass their own gay marriage legislation would be countered by a Liberal Government in the High Court of Australia. I was right again. It is so difficult and regrettable to be right all the time!!