Love lies at the heart of the principle of marriage equality.
Marriage laws intend to unite a couple in a mutual and binding promise of love and fidelity. Over history, however, marriage has divided more than it has united.
In 19th-century England, marriage was restricted to one’s own social sphere, reflecting a deeply embedded class divide. Until the 1960s civil rights movement, laws against interracial marriage revealed a pervasive racial prejudice. In Australia today, same-sex couples are deprived of their right to marriage, forced to settle for legally inferior de facto status or domestic registration. Marriage laws have become a test to diagnose an ailing civil rights agenda. And Australia is in need of treatment.
The 2004 amendment to the 1961 Federal Marriage Act inserted six words into the definition of marriage that reflect Australia’s persistent homophobia – ”[marriage] is a union between a man and a woman”.
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