A 14-year-old boy with two mums has urged people to help make sure his parents are allowed to get married.
As voting begins in Australia’s equal marriage postal ballot today, Labor Party leader Bill Shorten held a press conference – but he wasn’t the star speaker.
Mr Shorten, a passionate supporter of equal marriage, gave over his platform to a 14-year-old boy, Eddie Blewett, who had come to Parliament to ask Australians to help make sure his parents can get married.
Eddie said: “People who know my family know that there’s nothing wrong with us. We play soccer in the winter and volunteer for the surf club in the summer.
“I have two parents. They love me, and the love eachother. All couples and all families deserve the same respect and value.”
Addressing some of the homophobic hate speech about same-sex parents from the No campaign, he said: “”People are saying stuff about my family. They’re saying that they’re not normal.
“They’re saying that they’re second rate. Don’t listen. Be yourself.”
Eddie warned against anger at the public vote leading to a lack of turnout for the Yes campaign.
He said: “I feel like people aren’t going to vote, like they’re going to throw their ballot papers in the bin.”
“To hear they were going ahead with the postal survey was pretty disappointing. I don’t think we can change the fact it’s going to go out but we can change how people vote.”
MyPinkNews members are invited to comment on articles to discuss the content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Please familiarise yourself with our community guidelines to ensure that our community remains a safe and inclusive space for all.
