CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australians are set to vote on gay marriage through a non-binding ballot by mail next month after the Senate on Wednesday thwarted the government’s preferred option for gauging public opinion before legislating the issue.
But the so-call postal plebiscite has never been tried in Australia and faces court challenges by gay-rights advocates who want Parliament to legislate marriage equality now without an opinion poll.
The conservative government’s preferred option was a compulsory plebiscite which would be conducted like a general election with ballot boxes around Australia on Nov. 25. The cost would have been 170 million Australian dollars ($135 million).
The voluntary plebiscite, in which voters would mail their ballots from Sept. 12 until Nov. 7, would cost AU$122 million. Opponents say the result would be less representative of the Australian population and that young adults would be particularly underrepresented because they are less familiar with traditional mail.
The government had hoped that the threat of the inferior alternative of the postal plebiscite would make the Senate reconsider its decision last November to block the plebiscite.
But the government’s second bid was defeated on Wednesday by a 31-vote tie.
Opposition Senate leader Penny Wong said that some lawmakers in the ruling coalition would never vote for marriage equality, regardless of public opinion.
“This is a vote because some in the coalition can never countenance equality and they’re never going to change their minds. They simply cannot countenance people like me and others being equal,” Wong, a lesbian, told the Senate.
Janet Rice, a senator in the minor Greens party, said she was only able to remain married to her transgender wife of 31 years, Penny, because Penny remained listed as male on her birth certificate, despite transitioning 13 years ago .
“There are very good reasons why you don’t put issues of human rights to a public vote,” Rice told the Senate. “The hurt, the hatred, the attacks on LGBTI people are going to be amplified in our community.”
Successive opinion polls show most Australians support gay marriage. But national referendums in Australian rarely change the status quo. Gay-rights advocates fear that on an issue that doesn’t directly affect most Australians, a majority might be persuaded to opt against change.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who is still a government lawmaker, began campaigning against gay marriage on Wednesday ahead of the Senate vote.
“I say to you: If you don’t like same-sex marriage, vote ‘no.’ If you worry about freedom of speech and freedom of religion, vote ‘no;’ and if you don’t like political correctness, vote ‘no’ because this is the best way to stop it in its tracks,” Abbott told reporters outside Parliament House.
Parliament would vote on legislation before Dec. 7, but only if the plebiscite shows most Australians want gay marriage.
The plebiscite pits Abbott, a former Roman Catholic seminarian, against the man who replaced him as prime minister, gay-marriage advocate Malcolm Turnbull.
Abbott was prime minister in August 2015 when his coalition resolved infighting over gay marriage by agreeing to a plebiscite after the 2016 election. Opponents saw the policy as a stalling tactic to sideline the issue ahead of the election.
Abbott was replaced by Turnbull a month after the plebiscite policy was adopted. Turnbull, like other gay-rights supporters, disagreed with the plebiscite, but he promised to maintain the policy in a deal with party powerbrokers to oust Abbott, who was unpopular in opinion polling.
Turnbull, whose popularity has also waned in opinion polling, said on Tuesday he would campaign for the “yes” vote.
The government revived the plebiscite this week after Liberal Sen. Dean Smith proposed introducing his own bill to legalize gay marriage.
