Tag Archives: Australia

As was expected, yesterday the Australian Senate followed the lead of the House and rejected a same-sex marriage bill. The vote was 41-26. Australian Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson used the debate to take a swipe at the “highly offensive” remarks of Liberal Cory Bernardi who suggested legalising gay marriage could lead to calls for the legalisation of bestiality. The comments …

Australia’s House today rejected a marriage equality bill by the lopsided vote of 98-42. As the vote took place Australians witnessed the unusual sight of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and other Labor leaders crossing the chamber to sit with those opposed to LGBT equality. Labor backbencher Stephen Jones says he’s confident same-sex marriage ceremonies will be conducted in Australia within …

Directed by JMG reader Dan Murphy. Not work-friendly.

Australian electronic duo The Presets aren’t gay, but they do love to put a lot homoerotic imagery into their videos. They first came to my attention when they played Folsom Street Fair in 2008. Nice guys in person, too.

“There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself — spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working. Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment …

The last Australian state to decriminalize homosexuality may be the first to legalize same-sex marriage. Tasmania’s House of Assembly has passed a bill to allow gay couples to marry. After more than four hours of debate the bill was passed 13 votes to 11. The long-serving Speaker Michael Polley was the only Labor MP to vote against the legislation and …

The lower chamber of Tasmania’s parliament is considering same-sex marriage. The bill has strong support from the Greens and may pass there, but it faces stronger opposition in the Upper House. The debate is taking place at this writing and a vote may come at any time. Watch live here.

Gay Star News reports: A new Australian campaign tackling homophobia has been endorsed by the Australian Football League (AFL) rugby code. The No To Homophobia campaign was launched at the Victorian state parliament today by the Victorian Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge and the Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay. Wooldridge said it was everyone’s responsibility to take action on …

McDonald’s has launched a lamb burger in Australia. The Serious Lamb Burger “is centered on a lamb patty made of egg, breadcrumbs, onion, parsley, rosemary, oregano and garlic.” Sounds baa-licious.

The author of the below clip contends that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard handles the idiocy of the birther movement better than Obama himself.

A gay trio calling themselves Pure Pole Studs will compete this weekend on Australia’s Everybody Dance Now with a routine more commonly seen in titty bars. Travis Scott, 25, is a pole dance instructor at the Fortitude Valley’s Pure Pole Academy and said there were some moves female pole dancers just couldn’t do. The key, he said, was male upper-body …

Australian pop star Gotye has taken some of YouTube’s 800 million parodies and covers of his cursedly inescapable mega-hit and remixed them into an original tune. One critic observes: “It’s just as annoyingly awesome as the original. He’s one of the first artists to take covers of their own song, and create new music. Talk about crowd-sourcing talent.”

One week after the premier of Tasmania vowed to legalize same-sex marriage, the premier of South Australia has followed suit. While there are two marriage equality bills before the federal parliament, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill told gay rights campaigners at a rally in Adelaide that he would introduce legislation to allow same-sex marriage at a state level. Mr Weatherill …

Openly gay Australian gymnast and former Olympian Ji Wallace has come out as HIV-positive. Wallace, a trampolinist who won a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, said he was inspired to make the public admission about his diagnosis after seeing an interview given by US diver Greg Louganis about his battle with HIV and being a gay Olympian. …

In a move that will pressure Australia’s national government, the head of the state of Tasmania announced today that same-sex marriage may be legalized there later this year. The move appeared to catch the federal government and other states by surprise, with Victoria refusing to say if it would recognise same-sex marriages from Tasmania – and restating its view that …

Sing, dance, act…and drag. Quadruple threat!(Tipped by JMG reader Murphy)

A setback in Australia. The Australian state of Queensland will remove gay couples’ ability to have children through surrogacy and downgrade civil partnerships to the class of ‘registered relationships’, after a debate in Parliament last night. The Legislative Assembly in Brisbane agreed to extensively alter the provisions of the Civil Partnerships Act 2011, which came into force in February this …