May 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.
The Hop for Visibility, Awareness and Equality, focuses on this special day, and runs from May 17-24. Please visit the participating blogs for some wonderful posts and some great prizes.
In honour of this day, I wanted to talk about equality. I live in Australia. It’s a beautiful country, and I feel blessed to live here. But we have a significant issue that still needs addressing – marriage equality.
Interestingly, over 70% of our population support marriage equality, which should make the decision a no-brainer. Unfortunately our politicians have decided to make the process as difficult as possible. The Australian population need to participate in a plebiscite – a time consuming and costly process that has many people (rightly) upset.
The issue still needs support. You can visit the Australian Marriage Equality website to gain more information. And I’m sure they’d be only too grateful if you wanted to make a donation. You can also offer support by sharing their cause, or even buying a pair of Aussie Bums or a bottle of Unite vodka.
I’ll leave you with a wonderful video filmed by GetUp! Australia 4 or 5 years ago. It’s hard to believe that nothing has changed in all these years.
And finally a giveaway. Leave a comment on this blog post and I’ll choose a three random winners to win their choice of eBook from my backlist. Winners will be chosen on 25th May, after the hop.
Follow the hop for other posts and prizes.
Click here to be taken to the list of participants in the blog hop or use the links below.
Blog Hop for Visibility, Awareness and Equality.
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As an American, I’ve never even heard of a plebiscite before. Thanks for sharing!
I hadn’t heard of a plebiscite either, not until the government started throwing the word around
70% and it’s still such a process? Holy cow–how does anything get passed?
This is a really unique situation. I think there have only been 1 or 2 plebiscites in our history.
Agree with BA Brock – 70% approval and the politicians are still holding it up? Yikes! And plebiscite was a new word for me, too. Had to look it up. 🙂
It’s like they dug a hole trying to prevent making a decision and then ended up committing themselves to this more ridiculous process
New word for me, plebiscite. I had to look it up, lol =) Yikes, 70% approval and just sitting there. Just let it pass, geez louise. Loved the video, it’s one of my favorites.
It’s one of my favourites too 🙂
Go for marriage equality. My daughter is marrying her partner in October.
debby236 at gmail dot com
I’m so happy for your daughter <3
In with you. We live in a great place but… It sucks that with such a high number and still they aren’t seeing that as a win 🙁
Hopefully soon. Fingers crossed.
it’s dumb that “majority” doesn’t mean greater than 50%
stupid Aussie govternmental policy :\
on the plus side….yayyyy working on the election = money in my bank account lol
leetee2007(at)hotmail(dot)com
Glad there’s a positive side somewhere 🙂
I do not understand how with a supporto of 70% of population you still need a plebiscite. Australia should have an equality law… I’m so proud of my country! Our marriage equality law was approved in 2005. Now, people fully accepting it is a completely different issue…
thank you for the post, Nick
susanaperez7140(at)gmail(dot)com
Hopefully we’ll have it passed soon, and I cross my fingers that your country sees greater acceptance <3
It’s awful that your politicians will try to stop a movement supported by so many! I live in a small country in Central America, really conservative, so yeah, there’s not much chance of that happening here anytime soon, although I really hope I’m wrong. Thanks for the post!
anamaribelcardenas@yahoo.com
We can both live in hope 🙂
Nic,
so pleased you took part in the hop. Thank you.
Cherie Noel, Hop Admin
Thank you for organising and giving me the opportunity <3
nice of you to participate
Such as great day, it’s a privilege to take part <3
Thanks for being part of the hop.
sstrode at scrtc dot com
Thanks for reading my post 🙂
The three winners of the giveaway (thanks to the random number picker) were debby236, Jenf27, and Cherie. I’ll be in contact to find out what ebook you’d like. Congratulations and thanks for following along with the hop. 🙂