Only seven months after Senators shot
down her gay marriage bill, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has
reintroduced the measure, the Australian reported.
Hanson-Young's bill is the first to
take on Australia's Marriage Act, removing all references to gender
from the law.
“I vowed to keep fighting and I
promised to reintroduce my bill for a second time in the new
parliament,” she told the upper house on Wednesday.
The bill, however, faces a steep
incline. Last February, only five out of fifty senators voted in
favor of the legislation. In the end, only the Greens agreed with
the measure. Hanson-Young called the absence of nearly a third of
the senators a “protest” vote.
Leading Labor Party officials have
already ruled out allowing their members a conscience vote.
“The Labor Party has a clear position
on the Marriage Act, that is a party position, so you should expect
to see the Labor Party voting as a political party, in unison, if
that proposition comes to the parliament,” Prime Minister Julia
Gillard told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Hanson-Young urged backers to lobby
their individual MP's on the issue, and demand a conscience vote from
the Labor Party.
A majority of Australians favor
granting gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.