The Road to Love Legalized: Reflecting on Australia's Marriage Equality Triumph

The echoes of our hard-won victory for marriage equality in Australia still resound vibrantly in our hearts, and today, I, Cris Stevens-Todd, am thrilled to take you through the emotional and historical pilgrimage that led us to this monumental achievement. Listen as we revisit the cascading effects of Ontario's same-sex marriage legislation and the subsequent Australian endeavors that culminated in the landmark Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017. Feel the pulse of early activism, the swift legislative countermeasures to overseas same-sex marriages, and join us in celebrating the advocates who blazed trails towards justice and love, including Jackie and my dear friend, Jason, the wedding celebrant who graced my own union.

As we wrap up Joy's summer program with this introspective journey, we not only recount the poignant milestones of this fight but also share candid, personal reflections of the days leading to and following the public's overwhelming endorsement of equality. From the gut-wrenching $80 million survey to the rush of joy on the day the results were announced, we explore the intimate and public dimensions of a battle that drew communities together and legalized love in its truest form. Experience the transformative power of this historical moment and its personal significance, including the process of unifying our family under one name, as we bid farewell to this season and eagerly await the stories and celebrations we're set to bring in upcoming episodes.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

you're listening to and explore your ability in production. I'd like to begin by knowiging the traditional owners and the custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded on today, the eight clangs of the Yorda Yorda Nation. I also pay my respects to the Elders, past and present. Hi, my name is Chris Stevens Todd and you're listening to Out Loud exploring LGBTIQA plus topics and stories. Welcome to this week's episode of Out Loud talking about queer topics and stories and experiences. If you're listening via Joy, this is our last episode on a Tuesday night as part of the summer program. Thank you for listening over the last eight weeks.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I'll be taking a break, a slight break, while the rest of mid-summer and other Pride events are happening over the coming weeks and then coming back with more episodes, which you can find if you search Chris Stevens Todd. That's C-R-I-S no-H after the C Stevens Todd S-T-E-V-E-N-S-T-O-D on Spotify or wherever you stream your podcasts In Out Loud and my other series. Think about it, did it, and Road to Pride will also come up, so follow and listen to them while you're at it. Also, if you're in Melbourne for the closing of mid-summer and attending the Street Party on February, the 11th, please come and say hello to myself. I'll be on the stall for Q-Lit, who are releasing their first anthology called Outside Queer Words and Art from Regional Victorians. It will feature 22 regional LGBTIQA plus writers and 11 visual artists. I've been lucky enough to have been asked to contribute a short story and feature inside the book outside. Bit of a pun there, I'm inside outside, haha. If you asked myself this time last year if I would be a published author, I would have said I didn't see that on my 2024 bingo card. But here we are.

Speaker 1: 2:15

But back to this week's episode which we're talking about marriage equality within Australia and the journey and how we got here. It wasn't a quick trip down the aisle. Looking back, it seemed to have popped up for a discussion in 2024 after the state Ontario in Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2003. And how does this start the conversation for marriage equality in Australia, you may ask? Well, two Australian same-sex couples attempted to have their Canadian marriages recognised in Australia. One of these couples is someone I've met many times and have been a key activist from the start to finish, and that's Jackie Tomlans. The other couple is someone I call a friend and who is my wedding celebrant when I got married, and that is, jason and Adrian Croizon Machine. Jason was our celebrant, who we have known for many, many years Together.

Speaker 1: 3:05

The two couples sought advice as to how the Marriage Act 1961 might interpret their situation. The act stipulated that overseas marriages were recognised in Australia except in certain circumstances. These circumstances were if one of the parties was already married or were not of a marriageable age, or if consent was not real, or if either party was in a prohibited relationship, that is, they were a brother or sister or ancestor or descent. Legislation did not say if the marriage was between two people of the same sex. On this matter, it was silent. This meant that it was possible for the two respective marriages might be valid under Australian law.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Long story short, a date was set in the family court hearing for the 23rd of August 2004, but the Australian government, which at the time was the Howard government under the Liberal Party, was on to this, and the Marriage Amendment Bill was introduced on the 24th of June 2004 and included for the first time a definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, voluntary entered into for life. The bill further stated that certain unions are not marriages a union solemnised in a foreign country between a man and another man, or be a woman and another woman must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia. The motivation for the bill was brought up in the Senate, stating that there are at least two test cases before the Australian courts seeking a declaration of a same sex marriage conducted overseas. The bill was rushed through, however, ensuring it was passed into law before the two couples application was heard. Amendment of the Marriage Act 1961 received royal assent on 16 August. That's exactly one week before the hearing in the family court. The case was effectively knocked out. The rest, as they say, is history.

Speaker 1: 5:14

In 2004, there was a news poll survey which found 38% of Australians supported same sex marriage and 44 opposed it, and 18 were undecided. I'm surprised by this, as I would have thought the percentage against would have been much higher. I was 16 in 2004 and in year 11, still not out, as it was still a world where being gay was really not accepted. To close out 2004, the Marriage Equality Campaign started in Australia by a volunteer led organisation and the first public marriage equality rally was held in Sydney, jointly organised with the community action against homophobia, to protest the Howard government's amendment to the Marriage Act, I would say the next lot of changes took place under the Rudd Labour government, where they introduced several reforms designed to equalise treatment for same sex couples and same sex families, for instance, in relation to Centrelink and general family law.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Same sex couples were previously not recognised as a couple for social security or family assistance. A person who had a same sex de facto partner was treated as a single person. The reforms ensured that same sex couples were, for the first time under Australian law, recognised as a couple. This angered a lot of couples that the government were happy to view their relationship now in terms of being a de facto, as this meant the government may not be paying out as much money. For example, couples income would now be looked at together and even one of the people in the relationship made enough money, the government could cut the payments they were paying to the other person. Eventually it was a loophole the government saw and moved in on, and that's how the people felt, because the government was still not changing the law to allow same sex couples to marry. Same sex couples received the same rate of social security and family assistance payments as an opposite sex couple going forward, but it did mean that many people and older people who were closeted and living with a partner now felt the force that they had to out themselves to the government that they were in a relationship, because if they stayed with the government's payment system and on their system as single and say someone dubbed them in or it became known that they were in a relationship, the government could then find them, make them pay back many of the payments and money that was paid to them and people actually could be prosecuted.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Other key issues is there is a difference between de facto relationships and marriage under law, and if the same sex couple broke up who may have been together for 13 years, the process for dividing property and settlement was very different compared to a straight couple who were married. And even straight couples who were married for only 5 years would have a much easier process through that than the same sex couple that were together for 13 years Simply because they weren't married. There were a de facto. There's many, many more loops to jump through to prove your relationship and timelines and all that type of thing, but when you're married, it's a guarantee given and then if you separate, in 2013, julie Gillard became the first woman PM in Australia. She was unmarried and living with her de facto partner in a relationship. Many thought marriage equality may happen under the Gillard government, but Julie Gillard made her stance clear that she believed in a traditional marriage. Her statement and stance was disappointing to many. Labour lost the next election, where Tony Abbott became the new prime minister, a man who had close connections to the Australian Christian lobby and the Murdoch media. Tony Abbott had made his stance very clear that he was against marriage equality.

Speaker 1: 8:58

The fight for marriage equality just got a lot harder In 2015, though. Malcolm Turnbull asked Tony Abbott as the leader of the Liberal Party in a challenge for the leadership, and he became the new prime minister and the first to publicly support marriage equality. But in 2016, an election was announced. Marriage equality was a big topic. Going into the election, labour, now led by Bill Shorten, vowed that if they won, they would introduce a bill to parliament within the first 100 days in government. The Liberal Party said they would put it to a vote whether Australia should change the marriage act, and it would be a plebiscite to allow the Australian public to vote on. The Liberal Party won that election and they were in charge and power for another three years. As per their election promise, they put a bill providing for the plebiscite towards parliament, passing through the lower house and being rejected by the Senate.

Speaker 1: 9:57

As the government had failed to attract and support the opposition Labour party and the Greens, the several Senate crossbenchers who demanded the same-sex marriage be legalised through a parliamentary vote. Despite initially suggesting the government had no plans to take any further measures on this issue, prime Minister Turnbull came under increasing pressure to change policy and allow a conscious vote in the parliament by August 2017. Several Liberal Party MPs stated they would consider crossing the floor to suspend standing orders and forced debate on same-sex marriage legislation against the government's wishes. At a Liberal Party meeting on 7 August 2017, resolved to conduct a voluntary postal survey on the matter later in the year. The government stated the survey would occur in the event, the Senate again rejected the legislation enabling the plebiscite, which it did on 9 August 2017. On 9 August 2017, the government directed the Australian statistics to conduct a survey on all enrolled voters to measure support for same-sex marriage. The direction was given to bypass the need for the parliament to approve a plebiscite. The direction was legally challenged but was upheld by the High Court. The survey was held between 12 September and 7 November 2017.

Speaker 1: 11:24

I, for one, was not happy that our fate and our rights were put to a public vote on this very expensive survey, which cost the government over $80 million. News polls at the time were showing the Australian public were in favour and supported same-sex marriages, and the government didn't need a plebiscite the first time around. When they changed the Marriage Act in 2004 in a hurry, why couldn't they change it again now in parliament without a waste of the taxpayers money? I think it was around $112 or $121 million which was budgeted to carry out the plebiscite and the survey. Because this was a survey, the laws around advertisement were very different to the laws carried out during the election. It meant anyone could make an ad or advertisement. For example, the no campaign could say whatever they wanted to try and scare people into voting no and it was perfectly okay if it was all lies. This caused a lot of hurt in the LGBTIQA plus community. Between 12 September and 7 November, the mental health within the community was reported to be at an all-time low, with many health lines reporting. They are getting more calls than ever from people around the public debate and misinformation of the public survey.

Speaker 1: 12:48

The YES campaign used high-profile people to help get their message out there, but also asking for people to share their stories and what this means to you put a face to it. So when people are voting yes or no, they see you and it's you they've already known against, or it's you they're voting yes for. I still remember where I was when the results were read out. I was at work. I turned the TV on and a co-worker was in the building. I wanted to be alone just in case the results were no and I didn't know how I would handle that. They read the results out live 7,817,247 people had voted yes. 4,873,987 people had voted no. That meant the yes vote was 61.60%. That meant the Australian public had voted in support. I was overjoyed. I remember going to the bathroom and I cried happy tears.

Speaker 1: 13:49

The government responded by confirming it would facilitate a passage for a private member's bill. Same-sex marriage before the end of the year. The Marriage Amendment Definition and Religious Freedoms Act 2017 was introduced by openly gay liberal party backbencher and Senator Dean Smith. The bill amended section 5 of the Marriage Act to the fight marriage in Australia as a union of two people. It also removed the ban overseas same-sex marriages being recognised in Australia, including one that occurred before the law change. Additionally, the bill included protections for religious celebrants, ministers of religion and bodies established for religious purposes to not be obligated to perform or provide services and facilities to marriages they object to.

Speaker 1: 14:40

The bill passed the Senate by 43 votes to 12 on the 29th of November 2017 and passed the House of Representatives on the 7th of December by a vote of 131 to 4. There was 11 absentees and it is disappointing that my local MP at the seat of Nichols was one of them. Living absentees. It's you know. Once again, it's not hard to vote to. You know, either vote no and say this was my stance, or vote yes and be a part of history. But to the 11 people that didn't vote, which other people were? Scott Morrison, who was later on a prime minister of Australia, peter Dutton, who is now the leader of the liberal party today. Damien Drum, who is the member of Senate of Nichols, and I can't remember the other ones who weren't there. I remember also watching this and the cheers within the Parliament House from the MP celebrating this, that this has finally happened after all these years, that they've done it. They've voted on marriage equality and it has passed. Even now, it makes me emotional thinking about it. Over the 10 years, I myself has campaigned and appeared in many newspapers telling my story. I even went to Parliament House to speak to MPs and wrote many letters.

Speaker 1: 16:09

The bill received royal assent on the 8th of December 2017 and went into effect the following day. Same-sex marriages lawfully entered overseas automatically became recognised from that date, and the first weddings after the normal one-month waiting period occurred on the 9th of January 2018. Several same-sex couples successfully applied for an exemption from the one-month waiting period, and the first legal same-sex wedding under the Australian law was held on the 15th of December 2017, with further weddings taking place the following day. I believe people who was able to get that exemption were people that potentially were terminally ill and wanted to marry their partner and loved one before they passed. You know circumstances and things like that were given for people, but normally you would have to apply to get married. I know I did. I did apply and then you get this paperwork back to say that you know you can and you got to wait four weeks. My own wedding was set for the 14th of April 2018. We set the date before we knew if this would be legal or not, as weddings take time to plan, and I just hoped it would all come together and luckily it did. Our daughter was born four weeks before we got married. It was such a special day with her, with us that day and then 10 years of us being together and Damien being my partner. He was now my husband by law and we were a family, all sharing the same last name.

Speaker 1: 17:44

It was interesting, you know, taking our marriage certificate into the many different places to change our last names, and I was like I want to change my last name. I got married. Here's my marriage certificate. And they I didn't realize that you just got to pick what last name you wanted. You know there wasn't a process or anything like that, it was just pick which name you want, whether it's you take your husband's name, he takes your name or your hyphenate it, and then which way you hyphenate it. And it was interesting. Some places would go in and they would naturally just think that I was taking his name. But yeah, it was a very interesting process.

Speaker 1: 18:27

And and then how we also came about, you know, we decided to hyphen our names and we knew we, when our daughter was born in Canada, we were able to pick her last name on her birth certificate as well. So we already had identified what our last name would be. And you know, my last name was Todd, my husband's last name, stevens, and we you know both of us being, you know, males we wanted to both honor our families as well, that will, hyphenate and bring both our families together and start a new name. So then it was like okay, well, which name will go first, which would go last? It came to the conclusion that Stevens, todd would be our last name, because Stevens, you know it had that flow, and then Todd was a good, solid ending. So Stevens, todd, I think you know having a name where you have multiple names, that sort of couldn't be first names.

Speaker 1: 19:22

You know people get very confused. You know I get called Todd beforehand, before I even got married, I would get called Todd a lot. But now I get called Steven, I get called Todd, I get called Chris, so I get called many, many names. It's interesting, it's a battle. It's a battle, but it's it's a first world problem.

Speaker 1: 19:40

So there's also a lot that I didn't talk about in the journey, in the process of Australia reaching marriage equality, because we would be here all night.

Speaker 1: 19:51

There's many members within our community who fought for our rights and never gave up, and I want to say thank you to each and every one of you.

Speaker 1: 19:58

I know that there's the high profile people and the many names that had the ability to make a splash, but there was a lot of other people behind the scenes in each and every community, sharing their story and without you, we wouldn't have got to where we are today and that I can, in many years, tell my daughter I helped change our history and that's the end of Australia getting marriage equality, and a bit of the history and process about how we came about it. As I said, it's not all of it. There's many parts that we didn't have time to talk about today, but I want to thank you for listening and listening for the last eight weeks. Be sure to follow my podcast series Out Loud on the platforms you listen to your podcasts, or, if you're listening to this now on a certain platform, make sure you follow so you can get the update when the next episode drops. Signing out for now, I'm Chris Stevens-Todd and this is Out Loud.