Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has been at it for years. “It†being the push for same-sex marriage in Australia.
In 2007 she picked up the gauntlet of social reform, championing the fight for same-sex marriage and ultimately equal rights.
She has become the persona of political will for gay wedlock, despite the bipartisan opposition in Canberra.
History rarely remembers the people behind social reform.
Who remembers British philospher Jeremy Bentham, who in circa 1785 wrote the first acknowledged argument to decriminalise homosexuality in England at a time when sodomy was punishable by hanging?
Or Marion Paull and Claudia Pearce who alledgedly established the Daughters of Bilitis, Australia’s first recognised openly gay organisation in Melbourne, 1969?
During the 2008 law reforms, Hanson-Young worked with community members and alongside Labor to deliver the best amendments possible while under the radar.
Yet unlike the other social reformers that have advocated various LGBT causes, Hanson-Young is not gay.
She is fiercely passionate about human rights and has been ever since her school days.
‘My parents had always taught me everyone should be treated equally,’ Hanson-Young told OUTinPerth from her Canberra office.
‘My parents were both city-bound people and decided when they wanted to have kids, they wanted them to be able to grow up in the bush and have a cleaner lifestyle.’
The South Australian senator was home-schooled in regional Victoria right up till high school which was when she first encountered the reality of discrimination in Australian society.
‘There were some indigenous kids from the local area who went to school and I had grown up being told everyone was equal and this was the first time I had seen real racism in my own classroom,’ she said.
‘It made me think diplomacy and recognising differences was really important because we may look different and we may come from different backgrounds but actually there are some key common underlying themes that we are all equal on.’
Following high school, Hanson-Young studied at the University of Adelaide and integrated herself into as many student organisations as she could handle, sharpening her political repertoire.
She pursued anthropology while juggling her many roles, which included president of the student association.
Anthropology, a lecturer had told her, was about respect and understanding; two values still pursued like pots of gold at the end of rainbow for minorities groups such as the LGBT community.
‘Ultimately (anthropology) is about respecting difference and that’s not a bad thing, that actually makes us equal,’ Hanson-Young said.
Just after Hanson-Young began her post-graduate law degree, Amnesty International snapped her up where she fought for human rights in South Australia and the Northern Territory for four years.
There she worked on cases like former Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks as well as other Australians mixed up in human rights’ problems.
‘I realised pretty quickly that I couldn’t just lobby and just be on the other side of the table,’ Hanson-Young said.
‘I wanted to get in and change what I could. I thought the best way of doing that would be getting politcally involved.’
And so she did. In 2007, Hanson-Young was voted into the Federal Senate as a senator for South Australia. She was also the youngest person ever elected to the Senate as well as the youngest woman in Federal Parliament.
From there she was handed the human rights portfolio following the departure of former senator Kerry Nettle, along with the LGBT portfolio.
‘My professional background was as a human rights lobbyist and campaigner. Human rights fitted with me,’ she said.
Hanson-Young reintroduced the Marriage Equality Bill into the Senate recently after failing to persuade the major parties to hold a conscience vote on gay marriage back in February.
‘I really see it as one of the core issues in exposing the inequality that we still have in Australian society, especially for same-sex couples,’ Hanson-Young said.
‘The marriage act is meant to be this piece of legislation that is positive, loving and celebrated.
‘The fact that it actively discriminates against members of our community because of their sexuality just doesn’t make sense.’
Benn Dorrington
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