On this day back in 1992 the Keating government decreed that gay, lesbian and bisexual people could openly serve in the military. Prior to this personnel who were discovered to be same sex attracted were dismissed from their roles.

The decision followed a complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission from a female reservist who claimed the ban was discriminatory. The commission called for a review of the longstanding ban leading to debate amongst politicians.

On November 23rd 1992 Prime Minister Paul Keating announced the decision to remove the ban, despite Defence Minister Robert Ray having stated in support for the current rules.

At the time Keating said the decision to lift the ban “reflected community support for the removal of employment discrimination and brings the ADF into line with tolerant attitudes of Australians generally… The ADF acknowledges there are male and female homosexuals among its members and has advised the Government that these members are no longer actively sought out or disciplined because of their sexual orientation.”

Alexander Downer, who was the Opposition spokesperson for defence, said if his Liberal party was elected the ban would be reinstated if the chiefs of the defence forces asked for it. However when the Howard government came to power they did not follow through with the promise.

When the cabinet documents of the period were released decades later it was revealed that Defence Minister Robert Ray and military leaders were firmly against the move to allow gays and lesbians into the services.

The wide range of opinions with the cabinet on the issue had already been shared by politician Neal Blewett in his 1999 memoir A Cabinet Diary. At the time Blewett was the Minister for Social Security.

It would be 2010 before transgender people were allowed to serve in the military. In 2002 the Defence Force Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Intersex Information Service (DEFGLIS) was founded providing support for LGBTIQ+ service personnel and their families.

In 2021 Defence Minister Peter Dutton ordered that IDABOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia), could no longer be marked by defence force personnel. The ban was overturned when the Albanese government was elected.

In 2021 a Royal Commision into veteran suicides commented. Among those giving testimony at the inquiry were many LGBT personnel who had been discharged from the armed forces over their sexuality.

OIP Staff, This post was first published in 2021 and has subsequently been updated. 

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English composer Benjamin Britten was born on this day in 1913. A central figure in music in the 20th century he composed well known operas, orchestral and vocal music. He is best known for the opera Peter Grimes, War Requiem and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. 

Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, Britten was the son of a dentist, and he showed a talent for music from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music and privately with the composer Frank Bridge.

He garnered attention with his 1934 composition A Boy is Born. The choral work sets a variety of religious based texts to music and was scored as a cappella for a boys’ choir. HIs 1945 opera Peter Grimes made him world famous.

Over the next 28 years he wrote 14 more operas, making him one of the most prolific composers of opera in the 20th century. Alongside large scale works he also wrote smaller pieces designed for smaller venues and companies. He often wrote works with particular singers in mind, many of his works were written specifically for his partner, the tenor Peter Pears.

Prior to his death Britten was given a peerage becoming Baron Britten of Aldeburgh in June 1976. He passed away in December of the same year from congestive heart failure.

Listen to Lawrence Power play Britten’s Elegy for a Solo Viola. 

Billie Jean King is also celebrating a birthday

Tennis champion Billie-Jean King (nee Moffitt) was born on this day in 1943. A former World Number 1 she won 39 Grand Slam titles during her long career.

Regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time she was named Time magazine’s person of the year in 1975. King has been a long standing advocate for gender equality and social justice.

In 1973 she took part in a series of tennis matches dubbed the Battle of the Sexes which saw male and female tennis players take each other on. King beat her male counterpart Bobby Riggs, it’s seen as a defining moment in the acceptance of women’s sport. In was dramatised in the 2017 film Battle of the Sexes starring Emma Stone and Steve Carrell.

King married her husband Larry in 1965. In the early 1980’s King acknowledged she’d been in a relationship with her secretary for many years, when she was the subject of a palimony lawsuit. She remained married to her husband for several more years, but the couple divorced in 1987 when she fell in love with her doubles partner Ilana Kloss.

King and Kloss were married in 2017.

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The TV movie That Certain Summer premiered on US TV on this day back in 1972. The film is acknowledged as one of the first sympathetic depictions of a same sex relationship on television.

The ‘Movie of the Week’ told the story of divorced contractor Doug Salter, portrayed by Hal Holbrook, who is expecting a visit from his teenage son. In preparation for the visit, he asks his partner Gary McClain to move out of their house, so his son will not discover that he is in a same-sex relationship. Martin Sheen, who was yet to have his breakthrough role in Terrance Malik’s Badlands, played McClain.

When the teenager discovers his father is gay, he runs away in disgust, they later reunite later Salter tries to explain his sexuality to his son with mixed results. The broadcast got the thumbs up from critics with the New York Times reviewer Marilyn Beck calling it “one of the finest pieces of drama you’ll see this year on large or small screen.”

Holbrook recalled in an interview just a few years ago that when he first received the script he was going to pass on the role, but was convinced to take it by Carol Rosen, who would become his second wife.

“It turned out to be very prominent and powerful, and you have to remember that in those days, back then homosexuality was not talked about. ” Holbrook said back in 2018.  “It was a big risk for them to put it on. The principle of it what attracted me to it, the principle of fair play, honesty, decency – that’s it kid – we’re all human.”

Director Lamont Johnson said it the TV network were incredibly nervous about screening the film and has shared that he received a memo from a top executive at ABC ruling that there should be no physical contact between the lead actors, not even lingering eye contact.

The two lead actors were reunited when they both appeared on the TV show The West Wing where Sheen starred as President Josiah Bartlett and Holbrook made several appearances as Foreign Affairs expert Alby Duncan. Holbrook passed away in January 2021.

Also on this day in history

In 1932 the play Incubator was reviewed by The New York Times. The play dealt with the homosexuality in an all-boys school. The production was produced by Arthur Edison and George Burton and ran for just seven performances.

In 1980 the book Overcoming Homosexuality was published. Author Robert Kronenmeyer suggested that people could be cured from being same sex attracted if they ate a strict vegan diet.

TV show Ally McBeal got people’s attention in 1999 when star Calista Flockhart’s character locked lips with her office nemesis Ling, played by Lucy Liu. The same-sex kiss delivered the show its highest ratings to date.

Taiwan held its first Pride Parade in 2003 with 1,000 people attending. Today it has grown to be one of the biggest Pride Parades in Asia.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was born on this day in 1960. In 2014 he became the first ECO of Fortune 500 company to publicly come out as gay.

Singer Sophie B Hawkins is celebrating her birthday today, she’s described herself as omnisexual. She had a bunch of hits in the 90’s including Damn, Wish I Was Your Lover, Right Beside You, and As I Lay Me Down. 

This post was first published in 2020 and was subsequently updated.

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On August 11th 2015, division within the Coalition over the issue of marriage equality came to a head.

The Abbott government’s policy was that marriage would strictly only be between a man and a woman, but as country after country around the globe changed their laws, and opinion polls showed the mood for change in Australia was rapidly rising, many Liberal MPs were also beginning to call for change.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who was staunchly opposed to changing the laws faced a dilemma, one that threatened his leadership. After a marathon six hour meeting the Prime Minister announced a new plan.

Coalition MPs would be tied to the party position for the remainder of the current term, but after the next federal election would be allowed to vote with their conscience, but rather than a vote on legislation in the parliament Abbott proposed a national plebiscite on the issue, sending voters to the ballot boxes to decide the issue.

“If you support the existing definition of marriage between a man and a woman, the coalition is absolutely on your side, but if you’d like to see change at someplace, at sometime in the future, the coalition is prepared to make that potentially possible, but the disposition is that it should happen through a people’s vote than simply through a parliament vote,” Abbott told reporters at the end of the marathon meeting.

The PM was criticised for delaying the issue, and many people observed that the proposed methodology was not common in Australian politics, and possibly chosen because it was unlikely to succeed.

Abbott only lasted as Prime Minister for another month, he was overthrown by rival Malcolm Turnbull. The plebiscite policy however remained. The drawn out process saw the government unable to pass the relevant legislation to allow for a plebiscite and eventually in 2017, a postal survey was held by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The result showed an overwhelming majority of Australia’s supported marriage equality and in November 2017, the laws were changed and same-sex couples were able to wed.

In 2019, the former Prime Minister attempted to take credit for ‘making marriage equality happen’, arguing that until he put forward the idea of a plebiscite the issue had been a political millstone for almost a decade. Given his long standing opposition to allowing same sex marriage, his attempt to take credit for the result was thoroughly mocked.

Children’s author Enid Blyton was born on this day in 1897

Enid Blyton was a prolific author who created many memorable works including the Noddy, the Famous Five, Adventure series, and Secret Seven novels, as well as The Magic Faraway Tree and many others works. During her life Blyton published over 750 books, as well as short stories and seasonal collections.

Her works have been childhood favourites for generations, but have also been criticised for being simplistic, repeating plots and making reading too simple for young audiences. Many of her works have not stood the test of time and have been labeled racist, xenophobic, and filled with prejudices.

Blyton was married twice, and there have been some suggestions that she was bisexual. Her first marriage in 1924 was to Major Hugh Pollock, who was an editor at the publishing firm George Newnes which became Blyton’s regular publisher. They had two children.

By the mid-1930’s her husband had become an alcoholic and he retreated from public life. With the outbreak of World War II he became involved with the Home Guard. During this time he began a romantic relationship with Ida Crowe, a young writer 19 years his junior, she became his secretary. In her memoir Crowe would later claim the Blyton has many affairs during her marriage to Pollock, including several lesbian relationships.

In 1941 Blyton began a relationship with a surgeon Kenneth Waters, her husband was incensed and threatened her with divorce, but they eventually agreed that she would sue him for divorce, so as not to damage her career. In 1943 Pollock and Crowe were wed, as were Blyton and Waters.

Blyton passed away at the age of 71 in 1968, she had been experiencing dementia since around 1960. Her work remains popular despite the criticism. A new television series of The Famous Five was produced in 2023 and a film version of The Magic Faraway Tree is in the works.

Blyton’s character George in The Famous Five is arguably one of the most famous tomboys in popular culture, and has often been a literary hero for gender non-conforming people.

Musician Joe Jackson was born in 1954

Joe Jackson had some massive hits in the new wave era of music including Steppin’ Out, Real Men, and Is She Really Going Out With Him. Over his career he’s released 21 albums, and also composed classical music too.

In his autobiography A Cure for Gravity he discussed his bisexuality. His 1982 hit Real Men has been seen as a discussion on masculinity and bisexuality.

Actor Anne Heche died on this day in 2022

Actor Anne Heche died in 2022, six days after being involved in a car accident.

Heche came to global attention in the 1990’s when she began dating comedian and actor Ellen Degeneres, not long after Degeneres came out on the cover of TIME magazine.

In the memoir Call Me Anne, submitted shortly before her death, she wrote that she never identified as a lesbian and did not regard the terms “gay” or “straight” as relevant to her.

She appeared in many blockbuster films including Donnie Brasco, Volcano, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Six Days, and Seven Nights.

Heche later spoke publicly about how she struggled to get roles in mainstream Hollywood movies after she shared she was in a same-sex relationship.

Her relationship with Ellen Degeneres lasted from 1997 until 2000 when the couple split. She was married to cameraman Coleman Laffoon from 2002 until 2007, the couple share a son.  She later had a second child with actor James Tupper.

Heche shared her personal mental health challenges in her autobiography Call Me Crazy where she detailed several family tragedies including her father’s AIDS related death, and the deaths of three of her four siblings.

OIP Staff, This post was first published in 2020 and subsequently been updated.

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Dynasty premiered in 1981 with a gay character

TV series Dynasty premiered on this day in 1981. The show followed the trials and tribulations of the rich Carrington family. In the debut episode it was revealed that son Steven Carrington, played by Al Corley (pictured left), was gay.

At the time there few LGBTIQ characters on television, so the inclusion of a gay character on a new prime-time show was noteable.

Despite identifying as gay, Steven has relationships with both men and women throughout the series run.

After two season Corley quit the role saying he was frustrated by the character’s ever shifting sexuality. The next year actor Jack Coleman (Pictured right) took over the part and played Steven through to 1988.

Prior to joining Dynasty Coleman a memorable role on Days of Lives where he played Jake Kositchek, who was revealed to be the Salem Strangler, one of the shows long running story lines. More recently he’s been seen in Heroes, The Office, The Vampire Diaries and Castle.  

When the show had a reunion special in 1991 Coleman was not available, and Corley returned to the role. In the shows 2017 reboot James McKay played the role.

Queen Elizabeth I reintroduced laws against buggery

On this day in 1564 Queen Elizabeth I reintroduced laws against buggery. Her father Henry the Eighth was the first British monarch to introduce specific laws against anal sex in 1533, but they had been repealed when his daughter Mary took the throne twenty years later.

The punishment for those caught breaking the law was death.

The 1533 Buggery act remained on the law books until 1828, when it was replaced by the ‘Offences Against the Person Act’, which covered a wide range of sexual related offences.   Homosexual sex would remain illegal in Britain until 1967.

When Australia was settled by the British the 1533 Buggery Act became part of Australian law. Victoria was the last state to remove the death penalty for anal sex, that happened in 1949. In 1997 Tasmania was the last Australian state to remove laws outlawing homosexuality.

Britain allows gays and lesbians in the military

It was in 2000 that the United Kingdom lifted it’s ban on gay and lesbian people serving in the military. Australia removed the discrimination in 1992, but the USA retained their ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy until 2011.

This post was first published in 2020 and been subsequently updated.

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It was on this day, January 4th, in 1982 that the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Inc. was formed in New York. It was the first community organisation created to tackle the emergence of what would later be identified as HIV.

Reports of a ‘gay cancer’ began appearing in the media, and the USA’s Centre for Disease Control there was an epidemic of gay men being affected by diseases and cancers that the body would normally not be susceptible to. The condition was named Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID).

To tackle the health crisis over 80 members of New York’s queer community met in the apartment of author Larry Kramer.  Founding members of the group alongside Kramer included Edmund White, Nathan Fain, Lawrence D. Mass, Paul Popham, and Paul Rapoport.

Group member Roger McFarlane set up a crisis hotline in his own home, and within a few months the group had found some office space in the building of a dance record company. THeir work is credited with mobilising communities and the medical profession into action.

Five months after the group formed scientists recognised that the condition did not only affect gay men, it was detected in many areas of the wider population. It was given a new name Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).  A year later, in 1983, scientist would discover the cause of the condition was a virus, HIV.

The organization’s mission statement was “end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected”. They served as a template for the creation of AIDS organisations around the globe.

Author Larry Kramer became frustrated with the bureaucracy of the group, and the apathy he found many gay men had to the disease, he resigned from the organisation in 1983.

He went on to write the award winning play The Normal Heart, which gave a fictionalised account of the formation of the group. The play was later adapted into a film starring Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer and Taylor Kitsch.

In 1987 Kramer formed the more politically focussed group Act-Up. Today the GHMC still provides essential testing, education and leadership programs in New York. He passed away in 2020.

Author Christopher Isherwood dies

Author Christopher Isherwood passed away on this day in 1986,aged 81. He was survived by his partner of 32 years, artist Don Bachardy.

He is most well known for penning the book The Berlin Stories, which was adapted into the musical Cabaret, and film A Single Man.

Isherwood came from an upper middle class background and was born on his family’s estate in England. He studied at Cambridge but left without completing a degree. In his 20’s he became friends with the poet W.H Auden and the two were romantically involved.

Isherwood based The Berlin Stories on his own experiences of living in Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1930s. Here he indulged his love for other young men and met a German named Heinz Neddermeyer, who became his first great love.

Isherwood’s time in Berlin was dramatised in the biopic Christopher and his Kind with Doctor Who and The Crown actor Matt Smith portraying the writer.

Isherwood was close friends with the author E.M. Forster who served as his literary mentor. The story of A Single Man was also largely autobiographical; Isherwood immigrated to the United States before the outbreak of World War Two from the United Kingdom and lectured at a Los Angeles university and he also had an affinity for younger men.

In the USA he became friends with the writer Aldous Huxley, Truman Capote was also a close friend who admired Isherwood’s work, many people note that Capote’s most famous character Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s shares many attributed with Sally Bowles from ‘The Berlin Stories’.

Also on this day in history…

Also on this day in history, in 1750 two French men Bruno Lenoir and Jean Diot were caught having sex in public. Both men were convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, they were the last execution in France for consensual sodomy.

This post was first published on 4th January 2020. This article utilises previously published content. Christopher Isherwood image – Christopher Isherwood photographed by Alan Warren 1973 published by a Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA 3.0.   

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Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson was born on this day in 1870 in East Melbourne. She would become one of Australia’s most celebrated writers under the pseudonym Henry Handel Richardson.

Her father died when she was young, and her mother became the Post Mistress in the Victorian Country town of Maldoon. Ethel Richardson attended Presbyterian Ladies College and excelled in the arts.  In 1888 her mother relocated the family to Germany so Ethel could study music at the Leipzig Conservatorium.

In 1894 Ethel married Scottish man John George Robertson, who was in Germany studying German literature and went on to work as an academic. Richardson became a tennis champion, while her husband worked at the university.

The couple moved to London in 1903, and in 1908 Ethel published her first novel under her male pseudonym. Maurice Guest told the story of an Englishman who falls in love with Australian girl in the German city of Leipzig.

Over the next thirty years Henry Handel Richardson would become an acclaimed novelist and short story writer. Among their works The Getting of Wisdom, the three part novel The Fortunes of Richard Mahony and The Young Cosima. 

Ethel returned to Australia in 1912 to conduct research for her three part novel, but after that remained in England for the remainder of her life. Alongside her younger sister she was an ardent supporter of the suffragette movement.

While she married her husband and lived a married life, the writer also documented her lifelong attraction to women.

Alfred Kinsey released ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male’

On this day back in 1948 researcher Alfred Kinsey released his landmark study into male human sexuality. The report introduced the Kinsey Scale which saw Dr Kinsey rank men’s sexuality on a scale of zero (exclusively heterosexual) to six (exclusively homosexual).

Kinsey suggests that around 10 percent of men are gay, and statistic that has remained in the public psyche for decades. His research was highly controversial at the time of its release, and in the years that have followed some of Kinsey’s research methods have been questioned, but his work is seen as foundational in the field of sexology.

Five years later he followed his report on male sexuality, with a study of female sexuality. His work is credited with changing public attitudes about how women experience sexual pleasure.

A 2016 review of research into sexuality argued that Kinsey’s reports may have overestimated the percentage of people who are non-heterosexual.

The release of the report in 1948 sparked great interest from the public, and Kinsey made his mark on popular culture. His work is referenced in the Cole Porter song Too Darn Hot. 

Kinsey, who was bisexual, had an open marriage with his wife Clara. As a young man Kinsey reportedly punished himself for having homoerotic feelings, but as an adult accepted his sexuality.

He passed away in 1956, aged 62. His life was dramatised in the 2004 film Kinsey, which saw actor Liam Neeson portray the researcher.

Director Bruce LaBruce celebrates his birthday today

Film director Bruce LaBruce was born on this day in 1964. His films combine narrative filmmaking with the production style of gay pornography and have often been banned in Australia. His works have been identified as part of the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s and often described as being shock provoking.

Among his works are No Skin Off My Ass (1993), Hustler White (1996), Otto, or Up with Dead People (2008), LA Zombie (2010).  

His thirteenth feature film Saint-Narcisse was released in 2020. It told the story of identical twins separated at birth and who unaware of each other’s existence. When they are reunited, they begin a sexual relationship.

HIs most recent work is 2024’s The Visitor which screened at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival.

This post was first published on 3 January 2020 and was updated in 2022. 

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On this day in 1929 author Charles Beaumont was born, and while he was not (as far as we know) LGBTIQ+, he wrote a story that had a significant effect on the fight for gay liberation.

Born Charles Nutt in Chicago he began his writing career in the 1950’s, and legally changed his name to Beaumont. He sold his first short story to sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories in 1950, beginning a career in speculative fiction.

Beaumont is remembered as the first author to have a short story published in Playboy magazine. His work Black Country was the first of hundreds of pieces short fiction the magazine would publish over the decades.

Acclaimed authors including Norman Mailer, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Gabriel García Márquez, Joseph Heller and Margaret Atwood would be published in it’s pages, but Beaumont was the first.

The author’s relevance to the fight for gay liberation came in 1955 when Playboy published another of his short stories A Crooked Man. 

It presented a flipside world, where heterosexuality was stigmatised. It told the tale of a man trying to meet his heterosexual lover in a gay venue, she has come in disguise dressed as a man. The couple meet illicitly behind closed door but are discovered.

Printed four years before the Stonewall Riots, it drew a lot of complaints from the magazine’s readers. The magazine’s founder Hugh Hefner voiced his support for the story saying “if it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse was wrong too.”

Beaumont went on to write many scripts for TV show The Twilight Zone, and also wrote many sci-fi movies.

The author’s life was tragically cut short, in 1963 at just 34 years of age he was struck down by a mysterious illness that saw him age rapidly. He died four years later in 1967; he was 38 but friends have recounted that he looked closer to 90 when he passed. Beaumont was survived by his wife and four children.

Lynn Ann Conway was also born on this day

When Lynn Conway passed away in 2024 at the age of 86, she was remembered for her groundbreaking research in the field of computer science.

Conway was a tech pioneer who in the 1970s developed a new method of microchip design that is now used in everything from smart phones to televisions and modern vehicles.

After she retired from the technology industry she came out as transgender and shared details of her personal journey.

Born in 1938 in White Plains, New York, her career began in the 1960s. After graduating from Columbia University, she joined a top-secret computing project at IBM.

When the company learned of her plans to transition gender she was fired, something she later described as like being forced to start her career all over again with a new identity.

Joining the team at Xerox’s PARC research lab where she worked with California Institute of Technology professor Carver Mead to develop a technique known as ‘Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)’ which was a set of rules for constructing microchips effectively.

Later in her career she joined the USA’s military research agency DARPA, before moving into academia. In recent years her contribution to computer science has been more widely recognised.

She joined Michigan University’s Engineering’s faculty in 1985 as associate dean for instruction and instructional technology. While she retired from U-M in 1998, Conway remained an influential part of the community—advising faculty members, speaking at events and even having lunch with students on occasion. She retained the title of Emeritus Professor.  

In 2020 IBM made a public apology for firing her over half a century earlier.

In recent years Conway began to get recognition for many of the ground-breaking developments she’s been part of in the 1970s, as where previously her male colleagues had been lauded for their work with little acknowledgment of her impact. She coined the term ‘The Conway Effect’ to describe the process of transgender people being side-lined from history.

Speaking of her passing, Michael Wellman, the Lynn A. Conway Collegiate Professor and the Richard H. Orenstein Division Chair of Computer Science & Engineering at Michigan University said Conway was someone who showed great courage.

“Lynn Conway’s example of engineering impact and personal courage has been a great source of inspiration for me and countless others. I was privileged to know her as a colleague and honoured to hold a collegiate professorship in her name,” Professor Wellman said.

Also on this day in history…

Actor William ‘Billy’ Haines was born on this day in 1900, he was one of the first celebrities who refused to stay in the closet for the sake of their career. A film star of the black and white movie era, Haines gave up acting in the mid 1930’s, choosing his partner Jimmie Shields over fame and fortune.

He went to have a successful career as an interior designer. The couple remained together until Haines death in 1973. Actress Joan Crawford famously described them as “the happiest married couple in Hollywood.”

The company Haines founded, William Haines Designs, still exists today.

In 2014 on this day Russia’s popular gay nightclub Central Station was attacked when unknown people fired bullets at the venue. It was just one of a series of attacks the club faced, including the venue being attacked by an unknown gas substance.

The attacks came as Russia introduced it’s anti-propaganda laws against the LGBTIQ+ community. Within a few weeks the club was forced to close, but it later reopened at a new location with improved security including bullet-proof glass.

This post was originally published on January 2, 2020, and has been subsequently updated. mage of Lynn Conway by Charles Rogers. Published via a Creative Commons CC-BYSA 2.5 license. 

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Today marks seven years since a Bill to legislate for marriage equality in Australia passed through the House of Representatives.

Following the ‘Yes’ result of 61% in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, the Bill from Liberal Senator Dean Smith with co-sponsorship from Labor, The Greens, Nick Xenophon Team and Derryn Hinch was the topic of fierce debate in both houses for two weeks.

Amendments put forward by Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, then-Treasurer Scott Morrison, Coalition MPs Michael Sukkar, Andrew Hastie, Alex Hawke, Andrew Broad, Sarah Henderson and The Greens’ Adam Bandt all met a major bloc of opposition, being knocked down either by a large majority or ‘on the voices’ of the house without division.

The passage of the Bill saw Australians in same-gender relationships begin to marry from January 2018.

The Smith Bill in its un-amended form allowed marriage celebrants able to ordain marriage between any two consenting adults, and provided exemptions for religious ministers, and celebrants who register as ‘religious’, to refuse service based on objections of faith.

Just four House MPs voted against the passage of the Bill; Government MPs David Littleproud, Russell Broadbent and Keith Pitt, and Queensland MP Bob Katter. Littleproud and Katter’s seats had voted No in the postal survey, but Broadbent’s Victorian seat had voted Yes, and so had Keith Pitt’s seat of Hinkler.

Ten MPs chose to abstain from the vote, including WA MP Andrew Hastie, former Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, former Prime Minister and one of the plebiscite’s architects, Tony Abbott, and future PM Scott Morrison.

As soon as the decision was announced the public gallery burst into a long round of applause that went for several minutes, politicians hugged, and the House burst into song with a hearty rendition of I Am Australian. 

OIP Staff, this post was originally published in 2020, and was later updated. 

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