The World's Largest Gay Wedding Ceremony?

by Michael Jones · 2009-06-16 06:45:00 UTC
Topics:

Gay wedding

How's this for a mass protest/demonstration: organizers with Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) in Sydney, Australia are planning to host the world's largest same-sex wedding ceremony during this year’s Labor Party conference as a means of spotlighting marriage equality and demands for equal rights.

In 2004, under the anti-LGBT leadership of former Prime Minister John Howard, Australia became the only "first-world" (I hate that term) nation to explicitly ban same-sex marriage as a country.  (The U.S. of course has the Obama-defended DOMA, but that isn't officially written into our Constitution.)  The CAAH's massive wedding ceremony is an effort to urge Australia to undo its ban on same-sex marriage.

The date you might ask?  August 1, 2009.

Here's what CAAH spokesman Simon Margan said about the national day of action:

This is going to be an important year, because we’ve got a lot of the rights that we’ve asked for, so the next logical step is to demand formal recognition of our relationships....

This really could be a turning point, I think, if we get a lot of ground support. We’ve got a lot of support from queer Labor groups so far who are keen to push this issue. It’s pivotal this year that we get as many people as possible to show their support, because if we all just stay home and don’t be a part of it, we’ll be doing ourselves a disservice.

Marriage equality events in Australia are scheduled to happen in in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Hobart, Perth and Lismore, with other cities to be confirmed.  You can check out their Facebook page here, or find more information (including downloadable flyers) here at CAAH's Web site.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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