My congratulations to the federal parliament for finally doing its job and passing the same-sex marriage legislation.
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This is a necessary step to correct a miscarriage of justice and makes Australia the 26th country to legalise SSM.
There was a time when Australia was in vanguard when it came to passing necessary laws such as giving women the vote and introducing the old age pension.
Those times are gone but it is still good to see the SSM legislation passed, even if it went around the houses with the unnecessary and costly postal survey that raised many false fears.
Those who don’t like same sex marriage or homosexuality full stop have nothing to worry about. Schools will not suddenly have a “degendering agenda”, boys will still be boys, girls will still be girls and no homophobic cake-makers will be harmed in the making of these laws (though as I heard someone say recently, what baker or florist is going to turn down the hundreds or thousands of dollars coming their way with all this new business).
My congratulations to two people in particular in parliament from opposite sides, Warren Entsch and Penny Wong.
Mr Entsch has been a long and sometimes solo voice for reason in the parliament for many years while Ms Wong was able to eloquent talk to her personal experience.
But there are those in parliament who have not covered themselves in glory.
Among them are former prime minister Tony Abbott, whose relentless negativety was soundly defeated both in his own electorate and across the country.
Surely his career is now well and truly buried, though like Dracula, I fear he may remain among the undead for some time to come.
Bob Katter, as always, is a different kettle of fish, but no less completely wrong.
To be fair to Mr Katter he was brave enough to be one of the four who actually vote no (unlike the slinking Mr Abbott) and his electorate of Kennedy did narrowly vote 53-47 against it.
But his incoherent ravings on the subject during the public debate and his rambling, nonsensical contribution in parliament this week have only served to confirm what a lot of people believe: it is time for Mr Katter to retire – Derek Barry