LDP supports equal love day
Issued 14 August 2010
Today, as thousands of people gather to show their support for same-sex marriage, the Liberal Democratic Party’s candidate for the seat of Deakin and the youngest candidate in the 2010 election, Benjamin Walsh, has urged voters to throw their support behind a party that opposes discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation or race.
Mr Walsh says that while the major parties agree on equal treatment regardless of gender or ethnicity, they blatantly discriminate against the rights of non-heterosexual Australians.
“The argument for not legalising same-sex marriage in Australia has been that the Marriage Act defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. But this is no stronger than the arguments that opposed all civil rights struggles in the Western world.
“If that argument was applied generally, suffrage for women and indigenous Australians would not exist and we would still have Protestants and Catholics using the powers of government to try to put each other out of business.”
The Liberal Democrats believe marriage is a private matter and not something that governments should attempt to control.
“We neither support nor oppose marriage by anyone. We simply believe this is a matter for individual choice and not the government’s business, no matter what their sexual orientation. We think the government should stay away from the whole subject.
“It saddens me that a country as diverse and tolerant as Australia has not taken steps to repeal laws that stand in the way of marriage equality for all its citizens. The idea that a person should be excluded from the joy of matrimony, based purely on sexuality, betrays the tolerance and diversity that has made Australia such a proud and unique country.
“I strongly urge the people of Deakin to support the Liberal Democrats’ bid to introduce long-overdue marriage equality into Australian law,” said Mr Walsh.
Contacts:
Ben Walsh
Candidate for Deakin
03 9386 2467
Peter Whelan
National Communications Officer
(02) 9652 0415
0416 275850
president@ldp.org.au
Website
http://www.ldp.org.au/
saw these guys at the rally today, couldn’t hold my laughter at the guy who tryed to give me a pamphlet… the problem is, these guys don’t just want government to stop playing dictator, they want government to stop playing government… if this was about equality for them, they wouldn’t be advocating abusive free market capitalsim that causes huge inequality…
We’re also still undecided on the issue of allowing socialists to get married.
Ygfi : I thought you’d be all for government to stop playing government, given that you’re an anarchist. =)
Ygfi- Hayek sums up the Liberal Democrat position on equality perfectly:-
“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.”
“People causing inequality is okay, so long as everyone had equal opportunity to cause inequality”
It’s getting very Rand Paul’ian in here.
“People causing inequality is okay, so long as everyone had equal opportunity to cause inequality” was roughly my thoughts on the LDP…
and the point at which i want to see government stop playing is once they’ve sorted out society and got it functioning as a collective… until then, removing the government would just result in corpocracy…