Spine delivered to Australian PM by protestors
LGBT activists have delivered a spine to the Australian Prime Minister to protest against his failure to stand up against his party.
DIY Rainbow and Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) decorated the anatomic spine in rainbow colours before symbolically handing it over to PM Malcolm Turnbull at Parliament House in Canberra.
Protesters push for Parliamentary vote on marriage equality (Photo by Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)
The protest came as Turnbull failed to push through a Parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage.
Cat Rose, co-convenor of CAAH, told GSN that the PM “has been in desperate need of a spine to help him pass marriage equality”.
Rose quipped that it may already be too late in providing the spine to Turnbull, and that “it remains uncollected”.
Speaking about the postal survey, Rose said that they had “absolute determination to flip this on the bigots in parliament and win a Yes vote”.
Rose added that they were confident in the community to vote in favour of marriage equality as they had received great support from a range of people.
“We are seeing a level of involvement from all sections of our community that is unprecedented and exciting if it ends in our movement standing stronger against this relentless stream of bigotry coming from the government,” they added.
Comedian Tim Minchin re-wrote an iconic song about Australia to protest against homophobic MPs trying to block same-sex marriage in the country.
Minchin, who is well known for his musical comedy numbers, released the biting ballad which is based on the 1980 hit I Still Call Australia Home by Peter Allen.
A postal survey is due to take place by mid-September if a legal challenge brought forward by LGBT activists is unsuccessful.
Equal marriage protest ( PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)
The survey, which is not considered a vote because it is being conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics rather than the Australian Electoral Commission, has been criticised because it is not legally binding and will come at a huge expense of $122 million of tax payers money.
Many feared that the postal vote would become a “hate speech bonanza” because the Australian Bureau of Statistics is not subject to the Commonwealth Electoral Act.
However, Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann is putting forward legislation which will force the Bureau to abide by the Commonwealth Electoral Act, which prohibits the use of any malicious or deceptive material.
