The results of the same-sex marriage plebiscite in Australia was released at 10:00 a.m. on 15-Nov-2017. The result was important for me and millions of others in multiple ways. I want to break down my views, expectations and the results. Overall, I am relieved with the result.
My Views
This is the twenty-first century and certain topics are not to be still debated like the earth is not flat, evolution, universe, the earth is not 5000 years old. Homosexuality being normal is one such. Individual or even majority is not a reference for normalcy. We should not be understanding the world with our cognitive biases. Scientific methods have given us the answers to some of these questions, and they challenge our understanding and our biases. So, it was bothering me that in this era, we are still debating whether to give equal rights to a set of people. In the age where we recognise and shut discrimination, rights of the homosexuals should not be for public debate.
Further, I was sceptical that this might give a floor to the nitwits to share their hatred. The community which has been marginalised doesn’t need more hatred. Also, I felt it has created an equivalence between the bigots and the liberals. The dichotomy is true but there is no equivalence between them. One is right and the other is wrong, so there is no middle ground between the two. To come up with a policy which accommodates both is like trying to balance one group with says the Universe is 13.6 billion years old and the other which says it is 5000 years old. The final answer cannot be 6.749999 billion years.
My apprehensions
However, in spite of all the logic and the right being on one side, I was still scared of the result. The past few years of world politics, the return of fascism or right-wing nationalism to the mainstream, the election of populist right-wing leaders across the globe, the rapidly diminishing support for human rights have made me wary of people’s ability to think beyond themselves. I strongly believe we have exhausted the conditions of the past and what I am seeing is not a revival of the fascist forces but a new set of conditions resulting in a fresh problem. It is a conditionality problem.
The below quotes of Søren Kierkegaard, the famous Danish philosopher always kept coming to my mind. I used it to convince myself that what we are seeing is a fresh problem by a different set of conditions which has led to a reality which we need to experience.
My expectation
I did some rough back of the envelope calculation. With every bi-party election, I always expect 30% of people to be on either end of the spectrum. 30% who will for sure vote Yes and 30% who will for sure vote No. I wondered about the remaining 40%, which is where most elections are decided. The No campaign didn’t lack any conviction apart from talking about scriptures and freedom of religion. The postal voluntary vote was a clever move from the pseudo-liberals. The 30% people who wanted to vote for No will always vote. For the No campaign to win, they need to convince the east number of people on the other side to come to vote. I expected people to stand up and do what is right. Further, I wanted people to see through the facade of the No campaign. When they talk about infringement to their freedom to practice their religion of their choice in this context, what they are actually saying is they want the freedom to discriminate. The expectation from the far right is not that they are allowed to follow their religion in the private space, they want their personal views to be
Further, I wanted people to see through the facade of the No campaign. When they talk about infringement to their freedom to practice their religion of their choice in this context, what they are actually saying is they want the freedom to discriminate. The expectation from the far right is not to follow a religion in their private space, they want to impute the public space with their medieval biases. I expected people to understand and reject this.
The Result and my analysis
Overall Result
79.5 %(12,691,234) of the eligible people responded
7,817,247 people – or 61.6% – voted ‘yes’.
4,873,987 people – or 38.4% – voted ‘no’.
I am happy and rather relieved at this result. I am not elated for the below reasons.
- 20.5% of people didn’t want to respond to this survey. Either they were indifferent towards the issue or felt one side is going to win over the other comfortably. Whatever be the reason, it is a significant majority. Such a percentage have the ability to tilt scales in any direction. The total number of people who didn’t vote amoung to 3,172,808 (approx). The difference between the two sides is 2,943,260. This is too close for comfort. Depending on how they voted, it could have tilted the scales.
- 38.4% of people who voted or 30.7% of the total eligible population have actually thought that it is fine to side with discrimination and infringing in other’s liberties, even if it doesn’t affect me. As much as it validates my hypothesis that 30% of the people will always be on the wrong side of all issues, it is a rather disturbing thought.
This result is a resounding success for the community which has been marginalised. I now hope that same-sex marriages are legalised without any hurdles. We have lived through the past and there is no point in wanting to relive it. Quoting Baruch Spinoza, the famous Dutch Philosopher,
“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past”.
We should also not try to recreate the conditions thinking it will lead us to the past. It is not possible and in the search of recreating the past, the far right will create a future not worth living. This issue should not raise its ugly head again. No one deserves to be treated unfairly and one cannot cry for fairness when their right to discriminate is taken away. The battle for a progressive future should continue and has to continue. Now, we have some breath of fresh air and gained some momentum to fight this battle.
Demystifying a skeptic's world 
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