Senator David Leyonhjelm to introduce same-sex marriage legislation in private members bill

Updated

The Federal Parliament is facing another debate on marriage equality, with a private members bill to legalise same-sex marriage being introduced to the Senate today.

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm is hoping parliamentarians from both the Coalition and Labor will back the proposed legislation.

He said the bill would allow ministers and celebrants to refuse to preside over ceremonies if they objected to same-sex marriages.

Previous attempts to pass legislation for marriage equality failed, but Mr Leyonhjelm said he hoped his legislation would win widespread support.

"All my bill does is prevent the Government from stopping two people from getting married on the grounds that they are not a man and a woman," he said.

"It does nothing more, and it requires nothing more than tolerance."

Mr Leyonhjelm said he did not believe the state had a role in relationships and that he and his wife had never formally married.

But he said given there was regulation of marriage, it should not exclude people who were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI).

"When the law says that LGBTI people can't marry, in an important sense, it is diminishing their liberty. A major choice is closed off," he said.

"The state is interfering, intervening, telling certain people that they can do what they want, except when they can't, while everyone else, of course, can."

Last December the High Court unanimously ruled ACT laws allowing same-sex marriage were inconsistent with the federal Marriage Act and were therefore unconstitutional.

The ruling was a victory for the Commonwealth which had launched the appeal against the laws.

Two years ago the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted against legislation that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry.

Just 42 members of Parliament supported a private members bill put forward by Labor backbencher Stephen Jones, while 98 voted against.

Topics: community-and-society, lgbt, family-and-children, marriage, government-and-politics, parliament, federal-parliament, australia

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