Tag Archives: Australia

IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW. Patrick Strudwick reports at Buzzfeed: Marco Bulmer-Rizzi’s voice is quiet and steady on the phone from Australia as he tries to stay composed – to explain what has happened, the magnitude of what he has lost, and the sense of injustice he feels. Last Saturday, while on honeymoon in Adelaide, South Australia, his new husband, David Bulmer-Rizzi, …

Australians still love their flash mobs. Via the Daily Mail: Thousands flocked to Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on Saturday to escape the searing heat, but were instead treated to a Christmas flash mob – hosted by two gloriously confident drag queens. Dancing to the tune of Kylie and Dannii Minogue’s latest single ‘100 degrees,’ bare-chested men and bikini-clad women wearing …

Gay Star News reports: Same-sex couples who have married overseas will now have those marriages given legal recognition when they return home to the Australian state of Victoria after lawmakers passed the Relationships Amendment Bill. Same-sex marriage is still not legal in Australia despite overwhelming support from the Australian people so many Australian states have created relationship registers so that …

Within weeks of his 2012 election to his state’s legislature, former Queensland Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie engineered the downgrading of civil unions to registered partnerships. But in what is being called a “breathtaking reversal,” Bliejie has declared that he now supports same-sex marriage. Q News reports: Mr Bleijie, who is a committed Christian and a marriage celebrant this week told …

Crawling + running = crunning. Which is really just a renamed exercise that football teams have long called “bear-crawls.” Via Gothamist: It took a minute, but the fires of Hell have at long last forged a new trend in public humiliation-as-exercise, and it is called crunning. “But I already cry when I run!” you say. “How is this new?” No, …

I first wrote about Maclean back in 2013 for the release of his quirky Australian hit Stupid, which made my top ten for that year. It appears that he has another hit on his hands with Techtonic, a soaring dance number you’ll probably like. Watch below.

Australia’s Senate today voted against holding a public referendum on same-sex marriage, instead calling for a free vote in their chamber by the end of the year. Gay News Network reports: Greens senator Robert Simms (pictured) introduced the motion. Simms is the Greens spokesperson on LGBTI issues and marriage equality. “Momentum continues to build for marriage equality in this country,” …

The Guardian reports: Controversial anti-abortion activist Troy Newman has left Australia after losing a last-minute legal challenge against his deportation. The US citizen had been detained at Melbourne airport after flying to Australia despite having his visa revoked, over concerns his Australian speaking tour could incite community harm. A spokeswoman for the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, confirmed on Saturday that …

SameSame reports: Although a public vote on marriage equality will be unnecessary, costly and divisive, new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has today confirmed he’s sticking to the Liberal party room’s plan to put it to the people after the next election. Whether or not there’ll be a change to the Marriage Act will “be determined by a vote of the …

From Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome: “This is the first time in Australia’s history that both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have supported marriage equality, giving us an unprecedented opportunity to achieve the reform. We will seek an urgent meeting with Mr Turnbull to chart a way forward on a reform that he knows is …

Huge news from the Sydney Morning Herald: Malcolm Turnbull will become Australia’s 29th prime minister after beating Tony Abbott in a dramatic leadership ballot in Canberra on Monday night. Mr Turnbull’s victory is reminiscent of the coup former prime minister Julia Gillard staged against Kevin Rudd in 2010 and makes the former communications minister Australia’s fifth prime minister in just …

After voting against a 2012 same-sex marriage bill while Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard now says she’s changed her mind. Via the Sydney Morning Herald: “Given the 1970s feminist in me saw much to be concerned with from a gender perspective with traditional marriage, I thought the better approach was not to change the old but to create something new,” …

The Australian activist group GetUp sent glitter-filled letters to Parliament members who oppose same-sex marriage. One of them called the police who then sent in a bomb squad. The Guardian reports: Police, bomb squads and hazardous material teams were called to investigate after a staff member of the Liberal backbencher Craig Laundy thought glitter in a letter about same-sex marriage …

Via ABC News: A Sydney-based gay couple aged in their late eighties, who have been in a relationship for 48 years, say they want the right to marry before they die. After a lifetime of relative privilege and opportunity, it is the one thing that eludes John Challis, and at 87, it really bothers him. “I’m not going to live …

A member of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s own Liberal Party yesterday introduced a marriage equality bill in defiance of Abbott’s mandate that all government MPs vote against any such attempt. The BBC reports: The bill was introduced by government backbencher Warren Entsch, one of several government backbenchers who plan to defy Mr Abbott by crossing the floor of the …

Thousands of Australians rallied in Melbourne today in protest of Prime Minster Tony Abbott’s continued opposition to a free vote on marriage equality in Parliament. Via the Age: On a bustling city street under overcast skies, they came in their thousands. Some came in hope, optimistic that change was inevitable. Some came in anger, outraged at a prime minister standing …

Via the Daily Mail: A group of young fishermen have captured an incredible selfie with a whale after it swam up and seemed to ask them for help removing plastic bags caught in its mouth. The friendly whale nudged their boat as it made a surprise appearance in Middle Harbour, north of Sydney. The men soon noticed the whale, which …

Katy Faust was the darling of US hate groups in the run-up to the Obergefell ruling and having failed at home, she’s now taking her anti-gay marriage crusade to Australia’s federal government. Last night she appeared on ABC News there: American Katy Faust was raised by her lesbian mother and her partner and she now runs a blog called asktheBigot, …

Furious with Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s threat to fire party leaders who vote for same-sex marriage, this Saturday activists will rally in Melbourne. Via press release: This Saturday over 20,000 people will head into the Melbourne CBD to show their anger at Abbott’s manoeuvring to maintain homophobic discrimination in Australian law. Five reasons to join us and rally: 1. Eleven …

Labor MP Tim Watts has made waves in Australia with a passionate marriage equality speech about his uncles who could never marry. From the Sydney Morning Herald: A Labor MP has attacked the Coalition government’s Senate leader Eric Abetz as an “anachronistic joke” in an impassioned speech recounting the story of a gay uncle who died of AIDS without the …