WHO WE ARE
Australian Marriage Equality is a national organisation working for equal marriage for all consenting adults, as we a believe person’s gender or sexuality should not affect their legal rights and responsibilities under Australian marriage law.
The organisation was formed in 2004 to campaign against then proposed amendments to the Marriage Act entrenching marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Since starting as a committee of concerned citizens, Australian Marriage Equality has grown into one of Australia’s largest and most successful equal rights organisations. As a non profit organisation, Australian Marriage Equality relies entirely on the generosity of its supporters in the community.
WHAT WE DO
Australian Marriage Equality’s approach to achieving marriage equality is through lobbying, advocacy and education. We’ve always held that marriage equality will be achieved when supporters work together regardless of faith, party, race or sexuality. We value respect, calm discussion and cooperation. We believe there is no place in the marriage equality debate for prejudice, anger and polarisation.
Our achievements include:
- Gaining support for marriage equality from a wide range of human rights organisations, state parliaments, local councils, unions and businesses.
- Obtaining recognition of same-sex marriages by government agencies like the Bureau of Statistics.
- Removing official impediments to Australian same-sex couples marrying overseas.
- Moving marriage equality forward at a state and national level.
- Moving political parties forward on marriage equality with an emphasis on cross-party co-operation.
- Increasing support for reform among legislators.
- Research and polling showing increased support for reform.
- Publication of key educational materials and the convening of seminars, forums and workshops.
- Keeping marriage equality high on the national political agenda.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
In recent times marriage equality has gone from the impossible to the inevitable, due in large part to Australian Marriage Equality’s direct lobbying of all sides of politics.
With only 25 more Federal MPs needed to make marriage equality a reality, this is a critical time to support Australian Marriage Equality’s efforts to win those final votes.
It costs real money to get the marriage equality message through to politicians, and those funds go towards actions like sending MPs fact sheets, distributing voting guides in key electorates, putting up billboards in targeted cities and country towns and sending influential people to Canberra to lobby face to face.
Another way Australian Marriage Equality works to influence MPs’ votes is through campaigning to increase the Australian community’s support of marriage equality, which in turn encourages their elected representatives to follow suit. Australian Marriage Equality builds community support through advertising in newspapers, TV and social media.
Every donation brings us closer to marriage equality.
