Busy Bats, when local is also national

Whew it's been a while since i posted here or at the Spectrum Cafe but it's not from want of being busy.

Australias recent election put several independents in the balance of power. They decided which of the two major parties would form government. For the next three years these Independants could be critical in every single piece of legislation at the federal level.

My local representative is one of them. And I'd already been raising Trans and Intersex issues with him via letters and emails over the last few years. Before the election several of us Trans Intersex Bi Lesbian and Gay locals were making the initial plans for a rally in town in November for the National Day of Action. When several local candidates had a public forum we raised our voices and made our issues a key part of discussion getting surprising support from almost all there and we later learned the only attending candidate whose response was dissapointing had his hands tied by his party who gagged even their GLBTI candidates from supporting marriage equality!

So what happens in my sleepy rural city could have a disproportionately large impact. And so this opportunity has been taking the greater share of my energies. Pretty exciting stuff. Anyone know of a place i can get a good cheap pink megaphone?

Call for Australian marriage equality

While I think that federal antidiscrimination legislation covering sexuality and gender expression/identity and the host of other major transgender, intersex and other issues are far more important (and which polls show has even higher majority support at 85% rather than the almost 60% of this issue) nevertheless the marriage issue is important still.

So here's a series of vids on the subject from Equal Love
http://www.youtube.com/user/EqualLove09

It does seem to say that GLBT issues are all fine except for marriage which I think is problematic but I think that in the main the vids seem pretty effective.