After all, the plebiscite plan was killed in October when Labor, the Greens and most of the senate crossbench refused to pass the legislation on the grounds that it was still unclear how the vote could be binding on the parliament, that many Coalition backbenchers had indicated their plan to ignore any result if they didn't like, that it gave public funding to hate groups, and that it was going to create a poisonous public debate over whether or not Australian citizens deserved to have the same rights as one another. The reason this is interesting is that despite all this, the plebiscite is still official government policy. Indeed, Malcolm Turnbull reassured the HuffPo Australia last week that "the plebiscite remains the government's policy. Obviously we were not able to secure support of the senate… the Coalition's position is that the issue should be determined by a plebiscite and that policy remains." Which leaves us a fun question to contemplate: if the government has decided not to fund the plebiscite, what's happening about same-sex marriage? The obvious answer would appear to be the government has interpreted the compromise it struck with the Australian people as being "we won't go ahead with the plebiscite, and in return you people will shut about marriage equality forever, thanks".

The next most obvious answer would be a vote on the matter in parliament of the sort which a) the parliament has on everything else, and b) would have to happen anyway, even if there was a plebiscite. That's also off the table for the foreseeable future, since then it would pass through parliament and become law and everyone could get on with their lives. (And we can say that with confidence because if the law wouldn't pass, the government would have settled this embarrassing and divisive issue for the rest of their term by introducing legislation, letting it get shot down, and then going "awww, gosh - we voted, and it failed! Darn! Oh well, matter settled!") So what options remain? As it happens, former Human Rights Commissioner turned Liberal MP Tim Wilson gave this a think back in November, and it made up part of his Acton Lecture on Religious Freedom. Specifically, he warned religious organisations that the secularists will "win" unless the religious lobbyists start working on a conditional surrender. "The first option is to wait until Labor and the Greens are in government, and we know what they will do: they will change the definition of marriage to be a union between two people. The second option is that those opposed push for the plebiscite again. Personally I think that is utterly pointless." And unfunded! "The third option is that those opposed seek a hard landing by proposing a law that won't be accepted by the government [which] simply creates targets which Labor and the Greens will pursue when they are in government in the future… And the secularists will win.