Australian teens made a Pride flag out of potatoes to call for equal marriage

Australian teens have made a Pride flag out of a thousand rainbow potatoes, to send a message to Australia’s anti-gay marriage government.

The country’s former PM Tony Abbott plotted to stall same-sex marriage when it was set to come to a vote last month, proposing a plebiscite (public vote) instead and avoiding a Parliamentary debate.

Following the ousting of Mr Abbott due to internal party feuding, new PM Malcolm Turnbull plans to press ahead with a vote after the next federal election in 2017 – which means same-sex weddings will likely not begin for a number of years.

However, equality activists aren’t taking the slight lying down – with two teenagers taking up potatoes in protest..

Will Richards and Dan Buttson, the co-creators of Potato Messenger – which allows you to send messages on hand-delivered potatoes –  made a Pride flag out of a thousand specially-coloured spuds.

The pair had initially been planning to send the potatoes to Mr Abbott – but following his ousting opted to make a Pride flag instead

They said previously: “We have now gained a number of connections that enable us to have the supply and media courage to allow for the delivery of mass LGBT themed potatoes to be a big enough success for most of Australia to find out about it, thus hopefully raising more discussion for Tony Abbott to see the injustice he is causing.

“Our ultimate goal is to have enough attention around the delivery of LGBT potatoes for Australia to even more clearly see how absurd our government is acting and truly show how the people obviously feel.”

Earlier this week, a Liberal MP compared same-sex parenting to stealing children from Aborigines.

During a debate in Western Australian Parliament, Liberal MP Peter Abetz compared same-sex parenting to the Stolen Generations, in which children were forcibly removed from their indigenous Australian parents during the early-to-mid 20th century.

He said: “Why have societies around the globe embraced marriage as a male–female relationship?

“The answer is quite simple: because it creates the stable context in which children may be born and nurtured, thus ensuring the future of society.

“The sad chapter of our history of the Stolen Generations surely points out to us that kids want to be brought up by their biological mum and dad, if that is at all possible.”

He also claimed that same-sex marriage isn’t needed because gay people are incapable of having monogamous relationships, as “particularly among homosexual men, [they] generally want what they term an open relationship”.

• Nov 29 2023

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