{"id":506,"date":"2017-07-10T16:40:16","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T08:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/?p=506"},"modified":"2017-07-10T22:49:39","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T14:49:39","slug":"marriage-equality-open-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/10\/marriage-equality-open-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriage equality open letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jenny<\/a><\/p>\n

My letter to my local Federal Member of Parliament, Mr Ken Wyatt AM, MP, a member of the Liberal Party.<\/em><\/p>\n

For readers outside of Australia: despite its name the ‘Big L’ Liberal Party is actually the right wing or conservative party, currently ruling Australia under Prime Minister Turnbull.<\/em><\/p>\n

The letter was sent on 10 July 2017 via this website:<\/em>
\nhttp:\/\/www.equalitycampaign.org.au\/messagemp?<\/a><\/strong><\/em>
\nwhich said “Write your message … and it will be sent to your local MP.” You can do the same!<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Ken Wyatt MP<\/p>\n

I grew up in Parkerville\/Hovea in the 60s and 70s and now live in Sawyers Valley. I’m a well-known and highly respected local classical musician and teacher.<\/p>\n

Please ensure any new marriage law covers any two consenting adults, not just opposite sex couples and same sex couples. This way non-binary and intersex people will be able to marry.<\/p>\n

At the moment some of us can\u2019t marry, while others can but they will be misgendered. When I marry my fianc\u00e9 I want to do it right, I don\u2019t want to have completely wrong words in it.<\/p>\n

Ken, as a straight non-transgender man, can you imagine getting married as a \u2018wife?\u2019 Or getting married to a \u2018husband?\u2019 How wrong is that? This is the sort of misgendering which happens under the current law.<\/p>\n

Marriage predates Christianity by a long way. For non-believers it is a contract and a powerful emotional commitment, but not a religious rite. Churches should not have power of veto over the Marriage Act; it doesn’t belong to them.<\/p>\n

Of course, many same-sex couples and couples where one or both partners are non-binary or intersex are indeed religious. My fianc\u00e9 is a Christian, while I am an atheist. There is no valid reason why we should be denied equality in the social contract of marriage.<\/p>\n

We already know the vast majority of Australians are in favour of marriage equality and would vote in favour of it if a plebiscite were held. Despite this, some MPs have already said a ‘Yes’ vote in a plebiscite won’t make them vote for it in parliament, thus making a mockery of the case for a plebiscite.<\/p>\n

Please do not appease the tiny vocal minority who want to delay justice by using a non-binding and expensive plebiscite. They are pushing a religious agenda and playing politics with people\u2019s lives. A plebiscite would cause taxpayer-funded hate and misinformation to invade the Australian media, resulting in great harm to a large number of Australian families.<\/p>\n

Respectfully<\/p>\n

Mx Margaret D. Jones, androgyne (enby)
\nSawyers Valley, Western Australia
\nEmail via www.mixmargaret.com
\nMusB(UWA), DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA.
\nMIMT, AMC, WWCC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My letter to my local Federal Member of Parliament, Mr Ken Wyatt AM, MP, a member of the Liberal Party. For readers outside of Australia: despite its name the ‘Big L’ Liberal Party is actually the right wing or conservative … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[16,55,58,23,60,53,59,57,29],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-trans-androgyne","tag-androgyne","tag-enby","tag-marriage-equality","tag-mx","tag-mx-title","tag-non-binary","tag-plebiscite","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-transgender"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Rs9D-8a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mixmargaret.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}