In celebration of Pride Week, the ANU Queer* Department on Thursday September 24 held a Marriage Equality Rally, with special guests including Ivan Hinton, the Deputy Director of Australian Marriage Equality and Professor Archie Clements.

Kat Reed, ANU Queer* Officer, started the rally with a positive attitude, stating that the rally was to “celebrate that we’re proud, and to show the government that we are as well.”

Acknowledging that there were “a lot of rallies, of a lot of student issues”, Reed invited the special guests to speak, as well as then opening up the platform for ralliers to share their stories.

These student speakers spoke of grappling with their acceptances of their sexualities and their families and friends’ reactions, as well as commenting on how the current political stance on marriage equality not only impacted one’s civil rights, but attitudes towards the LGBTI* community as a whole.

These sentiments were also echoed at the Canberra Rally for Marriage Equality, held on Saturday, October 3rd, in Petrie Plaza.

Over 50 Canberrans gathered in the city centre to show the city’s support for marriage equality. Shane Battenbury MLA and Cat Rose, co-convenor of Community Action Against Homophobia were among a number of speakers before the group marched through the streets.

Their last stop was the office of the local LNP Federal Senator Zed Seselja, one of the loudest voices opposing marriage equality in the Australian parliament.

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and emerging. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.