If the status quo was the best idea we’d still be nomads scratching in the dirt for grubs. Or we’d still be bacteria.
A piece of paper which was designed on a computer and printed by a giant automated printer, then folded by robots and inserted into an envelope, again, by robots, was sent to your house. A person will have put it in your letter box, and you or your partner would have taken it into your house, a place built by men and women out of parts suffused with centuries of improvement. You can read it today by sunlight or moonlight or by the magic of electricity or even fire. All wonderful things we couldn’t live without that required people to work together and accept new things. That’s how you’re picking up that pen or pencil, to make a mark on that piece of paper, that helps our society decide if we believe in this thing that means so much to so many on both sides of the discussion.
Change is such a powerful and wonderful force, and we should embrace it, not be scared of it. Change for the sake of it can cause disruption, but cultures and social groups mature and accept new things all the time, always have and always will.
I won’t tell you how to vote, nor shun you if you disagree with me, nor ask you to justify yourself. Since you’ve gotten this far I hope you read why I’m voting yes, and why I hope against hope that more people vote the same way I do than against it.
It’s because if this goes through as a yes, one day my relationship might be able to be legally recognised in Australia and give me the protections and comfort others have. One day I might not have to worry about the fact that my partner doesn’t have any legal recognition if I am sick or jailed or dead or any other of a myriad of similar situations. Currently my partner doesn’t get a say, she’s just another person in the street because we don’t cohabitate and we don’t fit a particular label. This terrifies me the more I think about it, especially now when l I’m a world away from home. Strangely I’m closer now to a whole list of countries where I’d be ok if we were citizens.
I’m not in a gay relationship so this isn’t about me, nor is it about anyone who also isn’t. It’s about people I know and love, and giving them the possibility to be legally recognised as married to the people that they love.