Australians will bring SSM home

NT Front page same sex marriage

The time for bickering is over.

Let’s get this done.

That’s what it says in glorious, full colour on the front page of Australia’s second greatest newspaper, the NT News, this morning.

It’s not just the Northern Territory newspaper - that’s what the country thinks, too.

As a nation, we’re weary of this battle. Just so over it.

Same sex marriage is a debate we’ve been having for way, way too long.

But now, today, the real debate — the national conversation, the true campaign — begins.

Not everyone wants the postal plebiscite. It’s $120 million that could be spent on something more useful, although Canberra being Canberra, they’d find a way to waste it.

But the plebiscite is coming.

Today’s NT Front page.

Campaigning therefore starts today. Actually, it started last night, with that sweet rainbow across the front of the Top End’s sassy little organ — and sadly, with the dearly-parliamentary-departed Bronywn Bishop, banging on about polygamy on Sky News.

Same-sex marriage isn’t about polygamy. It’s not about people wanting to get married to multiple people, or indeed bales of hay.

It’s about people who love each other, dearly, who have been in relationships for decades, who don’t get to make the public commitment to each other.

Who can’t ask the question: will you marry me?

Take care of me forever?

Love me through the good times and the bad?

And will you let me take care of you?

There are a number of people — especially amongst readers of this proudly libertarian newspaper — who don’t want the change.

They have been promised a say and, with the postal plebiscite, they will get their say.

But the winds of change are blowing. Parliamentarians on both sides have proven woefully incapable of getting this done but the average Australian?

Give them their ballots. They’re going to bring this one home.