Peter and I exchanged our civil partnership certificates at the British Consulate in Melbourne. In Scotland it was one minute past midnight on the day the country’s same-sex marriage legislation came into force, and several hours before its registry offices opened. We ended up being the first same-sex couple in the world to be married under the Scottish legislation.

That was a week ago. We originally wedded in a beautiful ceremony at Fenton Tower near North Berwick in East Lothian, Scotland, on 28 August 2010. We have viewed ourselves as married ever since. Seen from this perspective, Scots law has finally caught up with us. Our marriage certificate now says that we were always married, which seems totally appropriate.

Sadly, the moment we stepped out of the British Consulate and on to the pavement of Melbourne’s Collins street, we were stripped of our married status. Consular offices are UK territory and once we had left the office and returned to Australia we were in a country that expressly does not recognise or respect our marriage at all.

It is curious to me that Tony Abbott, the prime minister, allows UK consulates to register same sex marriages for UK citizens living in Australia, yet withholds any recognition of them once contracted.

The previous Labor government did not allow Portuguese embassies to do the same. When Abbott gave permission, some of us became genuinely hopeful that change was in the air in Australia. Perhaps his sister, Christine Forster, who is in a same sex relationship and campaigns for marriage equality, had finally persuaded him to change his mind?

It was not to be. It seems to me that to allow UK embassies to marry same-sex couples implies a tacit recognition that there is some validity in the marriages themselves. Nevertheless, there will be no change to the recognition of same sex marriages contracted overseas.



Not only that, the present impasse over conscience votes in the federal parliament means that Liberal Democratic party Senator David Leyonhjelm’s equal marriage bill stands little chance of being introduced. At best, we are looking at several more years before there can be any change here.

How differently this debate has run in the UK! David Cameron declared he supported equal marriage precisely because he was a conservative. Westminster supported the legislation across party lines in a landslide vote. If anything the Scottish legislative process was even more convincing. Every single party leader supported the change, resulting in the third biggest parliamentary majority in favour of any nation passing equal marriage (108 votes to 15).

The introduction of equal marriage in the UK has been a resounding success. Few legislative changes enjoy this level of popular support, especially with younger voters, and result in such a positive outcome for those affected.

In Australia, two-thirds of voters consistently support marriage equality. It is perplexing therefore that the political class in Canberra does not champion it – especially given Abbott is suffering in the polls. Were they to support it, the UK experience suggests they would have little to lose and much to gain.

