Parliamentarians should have a conscience vote on gay marriage

Politicians are now hearing support for the issue from people beyond the LGBTI community and beyond the inner city.

The federal election campaign highlighted this, with the issue being raised in regional and suburban forums. Encapsulating this shift was the exchange on the ABC's Q&A between Tony Abbott and the middle-aged, Liberal-leaning tradie Geoff Thomas speaking out for equality on behalf of his gay son. In response, some unexpected public figures spoke out for equality.

Tasmanian Liberal candidate, Cameron Simpkins, declared his support for marriage equality and called for his Party to have a conscience vote on the issue. Former Labor leader, Mark Latham, said he was wrong to endorse the same-sex marriage ban in 2004. Commentator Derryn Hinch publicly said he'd changed his mind too.

The federal election also showed that supporters of equality are not all talk. In inner city seats in Sydney and Melbourne there was an unprecedented shift in support away from sitting Labor members to the Greens. A shift would have occurred with or without marriage equality, but we can safely assume marriage equality played an important part in making it as large as it was.

If I'm right, if the staring game is coming to an end and people in both major parties are looking for a way forward, what options will they, and should they, consider?

The best way forward would be for one or both major parties to endorse marriage equality, and pass legislation with Green support.

But, of course, this is also the least likely.

A more likely but much less desirable option for Labor is a national civil union scheme as a substitute for marriage equality (by civil union I mean all those types of formal relationship recognition – including civil partnerships and relationships registries - that are not marriage).

I have no doubt this will emerge in the next few weeks or months as a possible "compromise". But it is a compromise that will suit no-one. The religious right will see it as "gay marriage by the backdoor" and campaign hard against it. Same-sex partners will also not accept it.

Australia is in the fortunate position of coming a bit late to the marriage equality debate. We can see what has happened in places that have gone down this path. Inquiries into the operation of civil unions schemes in Britain and the US show that civil union partners do not enjoy the same rights, recognition or respect as married partners, even when the law says they should.

The international experience also has a bearing on the argument that civil unions are a step towards marriage equality. Six years after civil unions in the UK and New Zealand, and despite friendly noises from Britain's ruling coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, full equality is as far off as ever in these two countries. Indeed, a strong argument can be made that civil unions have actually blocked the path to full equality by entrenching a second-class status for same-sex partners in the law and society.

I'm not against civil unions as such. They serve a useful purpose as an alternative to marriage for couples – gay and straight - who want a certificate and a ceremony without the cultural connotations and expectations of marriage. This is why I have been a strong supporter of such schemes at a state and territory level. But at a federal level, where there is marriage legislation that is clearly discriminatory, the situation is very different.