New Mardi Gras launched a Facebook-based petition to collect signatures in the next 12 months supporting same-sex marriage rights, which it hopes will be delivered directly to the Prime Minister on the eve of Mardi Gras 2012.
NMG intends to highlight the “high degree of support” for same-sex marriage, which will be printed out and delivered to Parliament House in Canberra by a convoy of Dykes on Bikes and the Harbour City Bears.
NMG co-chairs Steph Sands and Pete Urmson launched the petition from the main stage at Fair Day.
“Unfortunately the political class in Australia seems too beholden to the determined lobbying of small, highly motivated opponents of change.
“This is an opportunity for the GLBTQ community to show its strength and to reach out to its friends and supporters to demonstrate categorically that this isn’t the fixation of a small minority, but something that appeals to the sense of fairness of a large number of Australians,” Sands said.
Urmson said the petition application developed by pixolut.com “allows us to leverage the power of social media in a way that a paper-based petition never could”.
“We believe this will be enormous. We have given it a year to do its work and we expect to have a very long list of names to deliver to Canberra in 2012,” he said.
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To access the Mardi Gras petition, click here