The Liberal Party will march at Mardi Gras. Do they deserve to be cheered?

The Liberal Party, which specifically outlawed same-sex marriage in 2004, is eager to claim credit for last year’s marriage equality success. This Saturday, the party will have a float at the Mardi Gras parade. But for many queer Australians, the party is synonymous with the pain and suffering inflicted by the postal survey.

Here, two writers have their say on what, exactly, the queer community owes the Liberal Party. ANDREW BRAGG was the Director of the Libs & Nats For Yes campaign, and NIC HOLAS is a queer activist and writer.

We Wouldn’t Be Here Without The Liberals

— Andrew Bragg

The Turnbull Government delivered marriage for all in 2017. That is a fact.

Yet marriage policy was blighted by politics during the decade the Marriage Act excluded same-sex couples from the institution. No party has clean hands on marriage and I have no interest in playing politics.

As we approach Mardi Gras, many will reflect on the year that delivered marriage for all:

how did it happen and who do we have to thank?

Some are desperate to pretend the Government did nothing and the credit should go to everyone but the Liberals. The Liberal Party is terrible at history but has a very proud record on human rights — which is what marriage reform was all about. Too few of us know it was Harold Holt who ended the White Australia Policy and delivered the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal inclusion in the constitution.

It would be a mistake to allocate all the credit to the Government just as it would be foolish to pretend it could have happened without Turnbull’s government.

The credit should be allocated across the board: to the Parliamentarians who campaigned for it, to business, sporting and church leaders and to Australian Marriage Equality (AME). My purpose here is to make three points about the Turnbull Government’s contribution:

#1. The Circuit Breaker

First, the postal survey in which a staggering 80 percent of us participated delivered a resounding 60 percent Yes result. 15 November (results day) was a unifying moment and the Parliament made good and delivered marriage within weeks. It was our Irish moment.

Yet many of my closet friends found the process difficult. I understand and respect the process was hurtful for some, but it worked. It was the circuit breaker when we needed one. The indefatigable Mathias Cormann designed and delivered the survey with a simple, clear question after the Senate had blocked the compulsory attendance plebiscite.

“I understand and respect the process was hurtful for some, but it worked.”

I personally supported a Parliamentary conscience vote but the policy to have a plebiscite had been taken to the election which the government won –- and therefore had a mandate.

Turnbull and Cormann’s postal survey ended the decade of inaction on marriage. It built one of the biggest popular mandates in Australian history.

#2. The Mechanism

Second, we only have marriage equality today because WA Liberal Senator Dean Smith’s bill became the law. Smith’s fellow Liberal MPs — Trent Zimmerman, Tim Wilson, Warren Entsch, and Trevor Evan — kept the issue moving at all times. Smith and Co. did the hard work on drafting and navigating their bill through a fractious and divided Parliament.

They maintained pressure and delivered the actual mechanism which gained bipartisan support and is now Australian law.

#3. The Campaign

Liberals campaigned strongly for Yes. On the first Sunday of the campaign, Malcolm Turnbull launched Liberals & Nationals for Yes with a 30-minute speech that received wall-to-wall coverage.

The PM’s message urging people to vote Yes reached millions of people just as the surveys were arriving in letterboxes. He was supported on the day by the Federal President of Liberal Party Nick Greiner and the Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian. Our conveyors Kelly O’Dwyer, Simon Birmingham, Nigel Scullion and Darren Chester undertook a constant stream of media across the nation. 60 prominent Liberals and Nationals signed a full page open letter in The Australianduring the campaign.

The Liberals & Nationals for Yes campaign armed people with the conservative and liberal arguments for marriage reform. We focused on fairness, families and getting it done for Australia. Seventy one out of 76 Coalition seats voted Yes across the bush, ‘burbs and cities.

The forgotten people, the middle classes, the great voting base of the Liberal Party voted Yes in their droves.

These three facts, along with other contributions, have led to a better Australia. Anyone who has been to a wedding since December now knows how wonderful the new words are. Marriage under Australian law is a union of two people. Wonderful.

We Will Never Forgive You

— Nic Holas

Hey there, everyone who isn’t a goldfish. You probably remember late last year, there was this thing called the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. It was the busted little sister version of what was originally meant to be a plebiscite, in the seemingly endless clusterfuck that was the path towards marriage equality in Australia.

Oh, you do remember it? Of course you do, the survey choked Australian LGBTIQ+ people by the throat as it dragged us through the muck of Australian idealogical partisan discourse, resulting in every homo/queer/trans/bi/serophobic asshole being given the green light to have a say in our private lives.

Now, it seems that the Liberals, the very party responsible for unleashing that torrent of hate and prejudice in our direction, is seeking to take credit for the victory by painting themselves as a friend and ally of the queer community.

At the recent outdoor fair days and carnivals put on in Sydney and Melbourne by Mardi Gras and Midsumma, The Liberal Party made appearances and used the opportunity to show off their support for the queer community. In Sydney, their stall was decorated with placards that read “2017 Turnbull Liberal Government legislates marriage equality” and beneath that, “The Liberal Team. Supporting the LGBTIQ Community.”

Interesting. Liberals at Fair Day claiming credit for marriage equality. It was a private members bill (admittedly from a Liberal) and a free vote. pic.twitter.com/1GYkEolOJ2 — Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) February 18, 2018

The former statement isn’t untrue, it was the Turnbull Government that was in power when a private members bill from gay Liberal Senator Dean Smith was passed through Parliament in a moment very few queers are going to forget. Even the most partisan asshole (*waves) would be foolish to question the motives and intentions of Senator Smith, whose moving speeches and steadfast commitment to the cause were impressive and remarkable.

However, these things were remarkable not simply because of Senator Smith’s character. They were remarkable because the righteous path to marriage equality in this country was hindered every step of the way by Smith’s own party. A party so desperate to pretend it was in charge that it proved its authority by permitting a variety of thugs (in person, in print, online, and on air) to bully vulnerable queer kids in a lengthy, and costly, public campaign.

Here’s the Liberal Party brochure about LGBTI issues. (Sorry, it got ripped in half somehow.) #midsumma pic.twitter.com/aW280A3fTf — Andy Wrathall (@AndyWrathall) January 14, 2018

It feels somewhat gauche to once again list the various ways LGBTIQ+ people were thrown under the bus by the postal survey, and yet to see the Liberals claim marriage equality as their victory suggests how foolish they think us to be — that we would forget so soon, simply because we got what we wanted. The hard way.

“They say history is written by the victors. Well, let me tell you who won this victory, Liberals — it wasn’t you.”

They say history is written by the victors. Well, let me tell you who won this victory, Liberals — it wasn’t you.

It was the rainbow families whose very ability to love their children was brought into question by the postal survey. I remember speaking with two mums and their teenage daughter in Launceston who were dealing with daily bullying and abuse.

They are the victors, because they survived what you put them through. It was the battle-weary queer elders who had already taken to the streets to fight for decriminalisation, to bury their dead lovers with dignity after AIDS took them too soon. Whom we should be cherishing instead of rolling out to fight another (unnecessary) day.

You’d better believe it was the school-aged LGBTIQ+ youths who were already scarred by this same government’s cowardly capitulation to a moral panic about Safe Schools, which was used as a warm-up act for the conservative war against our community. Those people, and many more LGBTIQ+ people, were the victors, and it will be them who write its history.

The Liberal Party doesn’t get to claim a win simply because we all managed to navigate the incredibly dangerous and difficult obstacle course they placed in our path. If this government wishes to display its support for our community, as it claims, there is a very long to-do list that many of us are working on. Very few of these items would be as palatable to your base as “let the gays get married,” but that’s what being queer is all about. It’s intersectional, progressive, and it sure as hell isn’t conservative.

For what you put us through during the postal survey, for what you put queer kids through when you gutted Safe Schools, the LGBTIQ+ community will remember the Turnbull Liberal Government. Probably not when we are walking down the aisle, but certainly when we walk into the voting booth.

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Feature image via Eva Rinaldi under CC BY-SA 2.0