By rights the survey should be done and dusted to all intents and purposes by the end of this month. Most everyone who is motivated to vote should have done it by then.
The following 7 weeks will be taken up with:
Please do not contact the ABS until after the 25 September if you have not received your form in the mail. Telephone and online response options open for people who cannot complete the paper survey. Survey forms available for collection in capital city and regional locations.
Friday, 20 October 2017 (6pm local time) - Final day for requesting or picking up replacement survey forms, or for requesting a Secure Access Code to access telephone and online response options.
_Friday, 27 October 2017 - Please mail your form back to the ABS by this date to make sure it counts. _
Tuesday, 7 November 2017 (6pm local time) - The survey closes. If your survey is received after this, it will not be counted.
Wednesday, 15 November 2017 - Survey results published on the ABS website. The Australian Statistician will publish a statement on the quality and integrity of the survey.
But anyone campaigning after the end of this month will have missed the boat. This week is probably the peak season for haters.
Opposing marriage equality is no more legitimate than opposing women or indigenous Australians voting equality etc. Just because your opposition is deeply held or religiously supported doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.
Kind of cynical. Perhaps justifiably in some cases.
Where I work has decided not to have an official position, although others in the field have.
This is their statement.
xxxxx* embraces diversity and equality. We proudly support ALL our staff, patients and their families. We are respectful of each other’s opinions and care for those who may find the marriage equality debate difficult. At this time, during the equal marriage discussion, we would particularly like to express our respect and support for our LGBTI community as we understand that this may be a challenging time. Please reach out if you need support.
*It’s not a secret, but it’s also not really relevant.
DJR said it better than I could. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but it has really been nasty. I really feel for the the LBGTQ community, they must feel under siege. The skywriting was just a reminder of it all.
Somebody hired a farking plane to tell people that they should continue to treat gay people as inferior.
What kind of person goes to those lengths to promote discrimination?
The cries of bullying from a group of people who want the right to continue to treat others as second class is pathetic and it should be called out as such.
Lyle Shelton, Tony Abbott and Cory Bernardi are the prominent faces of the no campaign. Three white, middle aged, wealthy men are out proclaiming that their freedoms are being impeded by supporting and voting for same sex marriage.
Those three are the absolute textbook definitions of over-entitled ■■■■■■. Screw them and their “oh, woe is us” arguments.
Also, I am involved in public health and I’m dreading reading the potential future reports that detail the mental health burden this “debate” has created for the LGBTQI community in Australia.
I’m so sorry bomberjase that you and your family have to suffer through such a public debate about the legitimacy of your actual lives. It’s ■■■■■■■ ridiculous.
Just know there are so many people behind you. We got this.
B[quote=“chester, post:546, topic:2457, full:true”]
Opposing marriage equality is no more legitimate than opposing women or indigenous Australians voting equality etc. Just because your opposition is deeply held or religiously supported doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.
[/quote]
Australia’s anti-discrimination law: In Australia, it is unlawful to discriminate on the basis of a number of protected attributes including age, disability, race, sex, intersex status, gender identity and sexual orientation in certain areas of public life, including education and employment.
In theory we have a law against discrimination on the basis of sexuality.
I wonder if we will ever have a proper bill of human rights and basic constitutional responsibilities which will require our government and judiciary not to allow others to encroach on everyone’s right to equality before the law.
If you want to have a religion that discriminates against its own followers, provided it doesn’t encroach on other peoples rights if they choose not to be a part of that religion, that is probably as much as we can require at this moment in history. It is more than unfortunate for those who are born into families who have beliefs that psychologically harm their own family members out of ignorance, but we as a society are only just emerging from this state of ignorance and our conservative institutions are going to be the last to change.
Hopefully the opportunity this vote is giving most of us to show solidarity with our LGBTI brothers and sisters will counteract the haters. I have taught sexuality education in schools and it is actually a good exercise to give the whole group the opportunity to express whether they would stand by their friends if they came out as same sex attracted. It inevitably showed that the noisy haters were a small minority, despite typically making the majority of the noise.
I hope the school kids in our small semi rural shire on the outskirts of the Melbourne metropolitan area reflects the rest of the country.
Most ballot papers you receive in the mail (eg council or union elections) aren’t marked as what they are for, yet it is plastered all over these envelopes that anyone can fill out and send back.
It’s almost as if they were designed to be tampered with.
my resident conspiracy theory acquaintance suggested to me that the envelopes will only stick if licked so they can get your DNA and the forms are barcoded for nefarious purposes (not to prevent multi-voting)