A Bunch Of Teens Just Humiliated Our Politicians On Marriage Equality
"The consensus amongst young people is we want marriage equality and we need love."
Last night’s episode of Q&A was actually good for a change! Mainly because a bunch of teens were on the panel, and teens are great.
The teens were especially great when discussing Australia’s stunning lack of progress on marriage equality.
Why is our conservative govt trying to keep Australia from same sex marriage? Our #QandA panel responds pic.twitter.com/xqXLieZDEj
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) July 24, 2017
“Australia is one of the most developed nations in the world,” said one young questioner. “However, we are still denied the right to marry who we love. The Constitution of Australia prevents the Commonwealth from establishing any religion yet conservative politicians — usually with religious ties — are the ones denying the right to equality.
“Why is our conservative government trying to keep Australia from same-sex marriage?”
*Judging you*
The question drew applause from the crowd, and host Tony Jones immediately threw to Jock Maddern, a young rural conservative. You might expect a guy with that background to oppose marriage equality, but nope.
“It shouldn’t matter who you love. No one should be able to say you cannot marry them,” Jock said before backing a plebiscite on the issue.
Panelist Jacinta Speer agreed with Jock on marriage equality, but said a plebiscite would “only stir up so much hateful rhetoric and angry rhetoric”.
Then we heard from 16-year-old gay Indigenous activist Aretha Brown, who nailed the issue with her emotional response to the question.
“I’m pretty sure the consensus amongst young people is we want marriage equality and we need love, because no man and no woman knows exactly who they are at this point. We need love because… I’m sorry, it hits really close to home.
“Being part of this kind of community, I understand that there are some people that won’t agree with what you will say. You have to agree love is where you find it, love is where it will carry you, and you need it because I think a person is left [in danger] if they don’t have love, because it teaches you humanity and it teaches you how to suffer.
“To think there’s certain people out there that don’t have the same rights as a person sitting next to you… this is supposed to be Australia in the 21st century, for crying out loud. Yet I couldn’t marry someone if I really loved them. We say we’re progressive but I’m kind of left kind of broken when I think about it.”
After hearing from another young panelist — aspiring journalist Pinidu Chandrasekera — who backed a plebiscite on the issue, Jones threw back to the questioner, who told her own personal story.
“If you bring the plebiscite into this, you’re leaving minorities such as trans people, bisexual people, gay people… open to discrimination. This is something I hold entirely closely to my heart because it hits far too close to home.
“I’m from regional Victoria… In regional Victoria we’re more accepting. When you come down to Melbourne you see people giving you weird looks, giving my friends weird looks on trams, and then in regional Victoria it’s like, ‘oh, you’re gay, that’s cool. Whatever let’s keep going’.”
“You can open it to the plebiscite… but in reality that didn’t work. You’re opening people to attack and you’re denying people the right to love.”
Then we heard from Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg, who gave the same answer all government ministers give on this issue — that it was government policy that was taken to the last election — without ever really explaining why a plebiscite was ever necessary in the first place (it isn’t).
“I have great confidence in the Australian people to be able to debate these issues and once it’s done it’s done,” he said.
Opposition Health spokesperson Catherine King promptly shut that shit down.
“You have changed policies all the time,” she said. “I don’t know why you won’t change your policy on this. We should just get this done.”
The kids are alright.