Australian leader says gay marriage could be law this year

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s prime minister said Tuesday that Parliament could legalize gay marriage this year if the nation’s voters endorse it in a rare nonbinding poll in November.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he expected the public would support marriage equality in the so-called plebiscite, and that he would personally campaign for a ‘yes’ vote. It would be only the fourth time in Australian history, and first time in 43 years, that the government puts a legally nonbinding question to the electorate.

“I have other calls on my time as prime minister, but I will certainly support a ‘yes’ vote,” Turnbull told reporters.

The conservative Liberal Party-led coalition was narrowly re-elected in July 2016 with a promise to let voters decide whether Australia should recognize same-sex marriage through a popular vote. But the Senate in November blocked the plebiscite, which would cost 170 million Australian dollars ($135 million) and promote a divisive public debate.

The Liberal Party held a crisis meeting late Monday to resolve infighting and rejected a push to allow lawmakers to decide the issue now.

The government on Tuesday endorsed the party decision to ask the Senate this week to reconsider allowing the plebiscite, which would be held Nov. 25. Voting would be compulsory and failure to vote would be punishable by a fine, though a voluntary vote would be held if the Senate again rejects the measure.

The result would not be legally binding and some lawmakers have already declared it would not sway their vote on gay marriage legislation.

If most Australians want gay marriage, the Parliament would vote on legislation before the last two-week session of Parliament of the year ends on Dec. 7.

“Strong leaders carry out their promises, weak leaders break them,” Turnbull told reporters.

Gay-rights advocates say enough lawmakers already back marriage equality to make same-sex marriage legal in Australia now. For the first time in Australian history, both the prime minister and opposition leader back the reform.

Rights advocates see the plebiscite as both a delaying tactic forced by a hard right-wing minority and a strategy to undermine political support.

Opponents of the plebiscite argue that the government-funded advertising campaigns for the cases for and against would give authority to bigoted and homophobic arguments. Supporters say it would give ordinary people a voice in a debate dominated by activists.

If the Senate again blocks the plebiscite, the government intends to hold a voluntary postal plebiscite by Nov. 15. Voters would mail in their opinions instead of using ballot boxes at a cost of up to AU$122 million. Responses would be voluntary and therefore less indicative of public opinion.

Opponents argue that the postal plebiscite would also need Senate approval, and have threatened a court challenge if it proceeds. Turnbull said he is confident that the postal option did not need Senate endorsement.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, the government’s deputy Senate leader and an opponent of same-sex marriage, said some type of plebiscite is essential if Parliament is to decide the marriage equality question.

Sen. Nick Xenophon said his minor party’s opposition had not changed since they opposed the plebiscite in the November vote.

Lyle Shelton, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, said his advocacy group had collected 55,000 signatures on a petition demanding a plebiscite.

Sheldon handed the petition to Sen. Cory Bernardi, leader of the minor Australian Conservatives party, to present to the Senate. Bernardi has said he would vote against gay marriage regardless of what the plebiscite found.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

WATCH: Gay marriage proposal on Beijing’s subway gets buzz online

One man’s unconventional marriage proposal to his boyfriend onboard the subway in Beijing has set tongues wagging—in a good way—on the Internet.

Online news site Shanghaiist reported that the proposal took place on a rainbow-decorated train carriage on Line 1 of Beijing’s metro system.

A 43-second video posted on YouTube showed the man kneeling down in front of his stunned partner as he popped the all-important question while holding out a watch.

“Today I invite all the people we know and do not know to bear witness,” he declared in Mandarin as the majority of commuters in the carriage cheered him on and broke into applause.

There were also calls for them to kiss as they embraced each other after the successful proposal.

Images of the incident have since gone viral in China, with microblogging site Weibo flooded with positive comments and messages of encouragement for the couple.

The original post has been shared more than 10,000 times on Weibo, CNN reported.

One user wrote: “This type of love really needs courage, bless you!”




Gay marriage is not legal in China, although public perception towards rights for gays has shifted for the better. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1997.

In June, gay dating app Blued tied up with popular Chinese online shopping site Taobao to send 10 gay couples to the US to get hitched legally.


A gay couple also held their wedding ceremony in Beijing, a day after the US legalized same sex marriage in all 50 states on June 26.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Dating site protests anti-gay-marriage contributor

SAN JOSE, California — The appointment of a new CEO by the company that makes the Firefox Web browser has prompted board members to quit, a Twitter frenzy and a push back from a leading dating website because he supported California’s former gay marriage ban.

Mozilla, the nonprofit maker of the Firefox browser, infuriated many employees and users last week by hiring co-founder Brendan Eich to lead the Mountain View company. In 2008, Eich gave $1,000 to the campaign to pass California’s Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that outlawed same-sex marriages in California until the U.S. Supreme Court left in place a lower-court ruling striking it down.

The contribution was publicly reported and drew some negative attention two years ago, when Eich was Mozilla’s chief technology officer. But when he was promoted to CEO last week, his support of the ban took on more gravitas.

Three of the Mozilla Foundation’s six board members have quit, according to a Wall Street Journal blog, and thousands of employees and community members weighed in on Twitter over the weekend.

On Monday, New York-based dating service OkCupid.com replaced its usual home page for users logging in with Firefox.

“Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience.

Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid,” the message says.

OkCupid President Christian Rudder said he and the firm’s three other co-founders decided to post the message after discussing Eich’s appointment over the weekend.

He said 12 percent of OkCupid’s approximately 3 billion monthly page views come through Firefox, while 8 percent of the site’s users are gay or lesbian.

“We don’t think this was the right thing for people to donate money to, and this is someone we do business with so we decided to take action,” Rudder said.

Mozilla, which is promoted with the slogan, “Doing good is part of our code,” responded Monday with an emailed statement saying the company supports equality for all, including marriage equality for gay couples.

“No matter who you are or who you love, everyone deserves the same rights and to be treated equally,” said the statement. “OkCupid never reached out to us to let us know of their intentions, nor to confirm facts.”

Mozilla says about half a billion people around the world use Firefox, which has free, open software written in part by volunteers. Firefox has been losing market share to Google Inc.’s Chrome browser in recent years.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Elton John to marry longtime partner

WASHINGTON — Pop icon Elton John says he will tie the knot with partner David Furnish now that his native Britain has legalized gay marriage.

The top-selling artist told NBC’s “Today” show that “we’ll do it very quietly.”

“But we will do it and it will be a joyous occasion,” John added.




The couple, who have two children together, entered into a civil partnership in 2005.

A historic law legalizing same-sex marriage took effect in England and Wales on Saturday, the final stage in the long fight for legal equality for gays and lesbians.

Civil partnerships have been legal there since 2005.

“I’m very proud of Britain and the laws that we’ve seen come into existence since we’ve been together,” John said in excerpts of the interview set to air Monday.

“For this legislation to come through is joyous, and we should celebrate it. We shouldn’t just say, ‘Oh, well we have a civil partnership. We’re not going to bother to get married.’ We will get married.”

Furnish told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a separate interview that an intimate ceremony would take place in May.

“I think what we’ll do is go to a registry office in England in May, and take the boys with us, and a couple of witnesses,” the publication quoted him as saying.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

LGBT Fil-Ams hail same-sex marriage triumphs

SAN FRANCISCO—Darwin Dayan and his husband, Deo Patrimonio-Martin, who have been together for 18 years and wed five years ago, screamed with delight when they heard that DOMA had been struck down.  Their union in 2008 remains valid because they luckily wed during the brief period when same-sex marriage was legal in California.

The United States Supreme Court on June 26, the last day of its session this term, issued two stunning decisions on same-sex marriage that were heard around the world.

It overturned the Defense of Marriage Act’s (DOMA) federal ban on same- sex marriage as unconstitutional, thus allowing married same-sex couples in states where same sex-marriage is legal to receive federal benefits. The highest court of the land also ruled that proponents of California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, had no standing or right to appeal the district court’s ruling that the initiative violated the state Constitution, thus facilitating the resumption of same-sex marriages in the country’s most populous state.

Elated

Like Dayan and Patrimonio-Martin, other members of the Filipino LGBT community were elated by these historical rulings, which brought them a step closer to achieving full equality.

Dayan welcomes the ruling, which not only recognizes their marriage on the federal level, but also makes it easier for him and Patrimonio-Martin, a pharmacist, to handle their estate and file taxes like any straight couple. Dayan, a consultant for a human resources firm in San Francisco, has had a long history of activism in the LGBT community. In the 1990s, he served as co-chair of the board of directors of the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance and the Filipino Task Force on AIDS.

Jay and Shirley Mercado, who are advocates for marriage equality and the comprehensive immigration reform bill, were watching the morning news on TV when they heard the Supreme Court decisions.

“We jumped for joy, tears in our eyes, and could not believe what we were hearing,” Jay Mercado recalls. Jay, who works in the insurance industry, and Shirley, who manages a day care center at their home, have been together for 27 years and married in San Francisco in 2004 when same sex-marriage was legal for a few months in California.   However, the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008 invalidated their union. The Mercados have 16-year-old twin sons, Jashley and Joriene.

Jay says, “The decisions brought our family honor and dignity, and now we do not have to worry about Shirl’s immigration status in the future.”  The Department of Homeland Security has already issued an official statement confirming that in view of the DOMA decision immigration visa petitions may now be filed on behalf of a same-sex spouse in the same manner as an opposite-sex spouse. Mercado, who is a US citizen, will be able to file a petition for US residency for her wife, Shirley.






Far-reaching effects


The Supreme Court’s decisions will have far-reaching effects throughout the rest of the country. The demise of DOMA paves the path for legal challenges against the remaining 37 states that still ban same-sex marriage. But the Court ruling, which only allows federal benefits to married same-sex couples that reside in states that allow such unions, still poses a real dilemma for couples that decide to move to states that do not allow them.

The Supreme Court’s decision on California’s Proposition 8, which was based on technicality rather than its constitutionality, also promises to trigger a tsunami of lawsuits from same-sex couples living in those 37 states. Though the Court fell short of declaring a sweeping endorsement of same-sex marriage in the two cases, it is clear that the country would never be the same again.

As same-sex marriage is now legal in 13 states, including California and the District of Columbia, 30 percent, or about one-third of the country’s population, now lives in states where same-sex marriage is allowed.  David Boies, a lead attorney in the challenge to Proposition 8, said in a statement published in the San Francisco Chronicle, “The principles the court articulated today mean that we are going to have marriage equality in all 50 states. It’s just a question of time now.”



Unfinished fight
Nevertheless, the LGBT community and its supporters are aware that there is still lot of work ahead. Anti-same-sex marriage groups and individuals, including Republican politicians like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have vowed to continue their crusade against marriage equality. Graham was quoted as declaring, “Today’s Supreme Court ruling will not change South Carolina law, and I will continue to fight for and defend the traditional definition of marriage.”

In view of this polarizing political landscape, Jamie Manson, an award-winning columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, issued a cautionary tale. Manson stated, “If right-wing lawmakers are successful in restricting voter eligibility among the disenfranchised, LGBT civil rights will be as vulnerable as government entitlement, civil liberties, collective bargaining and protections for immigrants.”

Manson notes that a mere 24 hours before announcing the same-sex marriage decisions, the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that had subjected states that have historically practiced racial discrimination and want to amend their voting laws to strict scrutiny.

Voting rights and gay rights

Manson says, “The fight against voter suppression laws and the fight for LGBT rights share some deep connections. At the most fundamental level, both are civil rights battles for equal protection under the law.”

Thelma Estrada, a San Francisco attorney and Filipino community activist, agrees with Manson. Estrada, who is the current president of a local union of attorneys and a longtime supporter of gay rights, states, “The struggle of the LGBT community for equal protection under the law is part of the civil rights struggle. Just as we demand for equality for gay rights, we should also demand for equality at the voting booth. We need to affirm our commitment to fight discrimination of any kind.”

Fighting for equality is something that the Mercados, Dayan and many members of the Fil-Am LGBT community have shown they could do very well. They campaigned tirelessly against Proposition 8 and supported the battle for marriage equality by fundraising, making speeches, joining rallies and lobbying Congress. While pledging to continue the struggle for LGBT rights, they also see the need to defend other civil rights issues.

Jay Mercado says, “The LGBT and other communities should fight for any issues that will make us all equal.” Dayan echoes Mercado, stating, “As minorities, we need to watch out for laws and edicts that affect each of us. That’s why it’s often perplexing to me when people of color would make homophobic comments or be against marriage equality when we are all fighting for fairness and equality under the law.”

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

Thousands protest gay marriage in Paris

PARIS – At least 150,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Paris to protest a new law allowing gay marriage, a largely peaceful gathering that later turned violent as riot police battled hundreds of right-wingers.

Police said they had made a total of 293 arrests and that six people were injured in the course of Sunday’s demonstration: four police officers, an AFP photographer and a protester.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls, in a statement, blamed the “extreme right” for the violence.

“These incidents were provoked by several hundred individuals, most from the extreme right and the (nationalist) Identity Bloc, who violently attacked police,” he added.

The rally came as the jury at the Cannes film festival in southern France on Sunday awarded its Palme d’Or top prize to the sexually graphic lesbian love story “Blue is the Warmest Colour” by French-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche.

The main demonstration on Sunday saw three separate processions converging on the Invalides esplanade, filling the huge promenade with pink and blue — the colours adopted by the anti-gay marriage movement.

Police said 150,000 people turned out to protest, a figure immediately contested by organisers who said one million opponents of the law had shown up.

Some of the far-right activists briefly unfurled a banner at the ruling Socialist party’s headquarters urging President Francois Hollande to resign.

As the protestors dispersed, after a largely peaceful march, police said up to 500 people began attacking them by throwing metal barriers, smoke flares and beer bottles.

The youths shouted slogans against the government such as “Socialist dictatorship” and also threw objects at journalists covering the event.

Late Saturday, police had detained 50 people involved in an anti-gay marriage protest on the busy Champs-Elysees avenue.

Fears of unrest at Sunday’s protest had been fuelled by violence that erupted earlier this month during celebrations marking football club Paris Saint-Germain’s league victory, which saw tourists attacked and shop and car windows smashed.

Some 4,500 security forces were mobilised for Sunday’s demonstration that was billed as a last-ditch show of force by opponents of the bill allowing same-sex marriage and adoption, which was voted into law on May 18 following months of bitter protests.

But those in the protest ignored the recent tensions, bringing their children along as others had in previous demonstrations.

“We keep hearing about a far-right movement, I can see only families here,” said one man called Raoul, who came from the city of Dijon.

Onlookers were instead treated to creative forms of protest. One man dressed in black held a scythe and wore a mask of Hollande as he stood behind a coffin containing a mannequin dressed as Marianne, the emblem of France.

“Hollande, your mother isn’t called Robert”, shouted some of the demonstrators in a slogan that gained in popularity as the afternoon progressed.

Supporters and opponents of the bill began protesting last autumn when it was adopted by the cabinet, and continued to do so at regular intervals throughout the country during the legislative process.

The definitive vote in the French parliament came on April 23 when the law was passed legalizing both homosexual marriages and adoptions by gay couples.

One of Hollande’s campaign pledges, it has proved hugely divisive in a country that is officially secular but predominantly Catholic.

France is the 14th country to legalise same-sex marriage, an issue that has also divided opinion in many other nations.

In Brazil, tens of thousands of evangelical Christians marched in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday protesting a recent legal ruling allowing gay marriage.

And in Poland, some 10,000 protesters marched Sunday in solidarity with opponents of the French law, to defend the traditional family structure.

But according to a survey published Sunday in the Journal du Dimanche, nearly three-quarters of French people are tired of the anti-bill protests and think they should stop.

Another potential flashpoint will be in the southern town of Montpellier on Wednesday when the country’s first gay wedding is due to take place.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net