There comes a time after each election when you finally accept (after hoping and hoping for months that it really isn't the case) that the party you voted for, which you held up throughout the campaign as some bastion of all that was good in politics, was really just the lesser of two evils, and that effectively all political parties are the same. That moment came for me last week, when, after not one week earlier announcing that for all intents and purposes gay couples would be treated in the same way as heterosexual couples, the Rudd Government refused to allow the ACT to pass its Civil Unions bill as it "mimics marriage". Right. So... you're fine with gay couples having all the entitlements of a married couple... with the exception of a ceremony.
This article sums up this ridiculous situation. Here are the first two paragraphs:
Marriage is for one man and one woman. It is not for two men or two women, unless one is no longer a man or woman. A woman born a man may marry a man, as long as he remains a man, and she keeps taking her hormones.
The only way gays may marry in Australia is by sex-change, a rather extreme declaration of love, and anything that even "mimics" marriage is likewise banned.
