New Weddings in Australia
January 12, 2018
Australia’s debate over same-sex marriage was decided in 2017 after more than half the country supported changing the law to allow gay couples to marry. The law change went into effect last December, and the first same-sex weddings took place in Australia soon after. The changed law also recognizes same-sex weddings performed in other countries.
Same-sex marriage was recently legalized in Australia. Credit: © Fotos593/Shutterstock
In 2004, the government of Prime Minister John Howard banned same-sex marriage in Australia when it changed the country’s laws to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. As countries around the world increasingly approved of same-sex marriage, the debate over the issue persisted in Australia.
Malcolm Turnbull, who took office as Australia’s prime minister in 2015, supported same-sex marriage despite many members of his ruling Liberal-National Coalition opposing the idea. When he took office, Turnbull supported holding a plebiscite (public vote) on the issue, but the idea was rejected by opposition parties. Opponents of the plebiscite preferred to decide the issue in Parliament, fearing a costly campaign that would inspire hateful rhetoric.
In August 2017, Turnbull announced a nonbinding postal referendum that asked Australians to respond yes or no to the question, “Should the marriage law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” Ballots were sent to voters in September. More than 12.7 million Australians responded to the survey. The results, which were announced in November, showed that 61.6 percent of Australians favored changing the law to allow same-sex marriage.
After a debate in Parliament, Australia’s political parties agreed on a bill that addressed conservative politicians’ fears that allowing gay people to marry would impinge on other people’s religious freedom. The bill created four categories of celebrant (a person who officiates a wedding ceremony), two of which allow people to refuse to perform weddings on the basis of their religious beliefs. Governor General Peter Cosgrove signed the bill into law on Dec. 8, 2017, and it went into effect the following day.
Australian law requires couples intending to marry to give their chosen celebrant one month’s prior notice. This stipulation is intended as a kind of “cooling-off period” to ensure that the couple really want to get married. It also gives the celebrant time to file the requisite paperwork. This meant that, effectively, the first Australian same-sex marriages would take place on Jan. 9, 2018.
However, Australian law allows couples in certain circumstances to skip the waiting period. For example, several couples were granted waivers because one of the partners was terminally ill. Australia’s first legal same-sex weddings took place in mid-December 2017. The first same-sex marriages without a waiver took place a few days ago as expected.
