Australian Marriage Equality (AME) is a group of Australians from various states and territories who have come together to campaign for law reform and attitudinal change necessary to allow same sex couples to marry. It remains the pre-eminent group campaigning for marriage equality in Australia.
AME was launched in late 2004, following the Federal Parliament's passage of a bill amending the Marriage Act 1961 to rule out the legal recognition of marriages between same-sex couples.
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AME launched newspaper and television advertisements in 2009 to call for same-sex marriage.[1] They were also invited to speak at a hearing into the Senate Inquiry into the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009.[2]
After AME wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Sydney in December 2011, expressing their desire to meet with him to discuss the Australian Catholic Church's campaign against same-sex marriage rights, Cardinal George Pell tentatively agreed to meet with the group.[3] The group has also met with members of parliament from both major parties to stress the importance of marriage to families and to gay and lesbian youth.[4]
AME made news in April 2011 for confronting Australian prime minister Julia Gillard. The prime minister was addressing the Sydney Institute at a dinner in Luna Park; protesters at the car park entrance and the park's gates held photographs of same-sex couples who could not marry.[5] Later that year, they launched a series of touring workshops called "Local Voices," which aim to cultivate grassroots activism for same-sex marriage.[6]
On Valentine's Day 2011, AME, together with the organization GetUp!, ran an ad campaign called "Marriage Matters," which emphasized the importance of marriage to gays and lesbians.[7] Another commercial released around the same time featured twin brothers Paul and David Battye; Paul was best man at his brother's wedding, but cannot himself get married.[8]
When Prince William of Wales and Catherine Middleton married in 2011, AME, with GetUp!, sponsored public outdoor screenings of the event in order to call attention to the fact that gay and lesbian people in Australia cannot marry their partners. "On this happy day when Australians celebrate the royal wedding, many Australians share the aspiration to one day marry their own 'prince' or princess', including many gay and lesbian Australians," commented a spokesperson for the organization.[9]
AME commissioned a Galaxy Poll in 2010 which found that 62 per cent of Australians support same-sex marriage, and 80 per cent of young people (18–24 years) support marriage equality.[10] In 2011 they commissioned a second Galaxy Poll which found 75% of Australians think legalising same-sex marriage in Australia is inevitable.[11]
In March 2011, AME released a paper which found that Australia's same-sex marriage ban hurt its economy. According to the paper, married partners are less likely to seek government aid, state and territorial governments gain money by issuing marriage licenses, wedding expenditures would stimulate the economy, and tourism would also benefit.[12]
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