CatoCooper13
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***This happened in Australia...thought you'd be interested. 
***
Talk of lesbians and gay relationships spiced up an otherwise dull debate on the intricacies of superannuation law in the Senate.
Senators have the Labor Party, backed by the Greens and Democrats, to thank for sprucing up the dialogue.
Labor was seeking equal rights for access to superannuation for gay and lesbian couples.
But that didn't please Tasmanian independent Brian Harradine.
He opposed opposition efforts to allow partners of deceased gays and lesbians to automatically inherit their superannuation.
"Take two women for example. You've got two women living in one household, one of whom is a dependent and you've got in another household you've got two lesbians," Senator Harradine explained.
"What is being proposed by those that are putting this forward is to discriminate against the two women who aren't lesbians.
"Now how do you get over that?
"What you're proposing for us to do is to discriminate against those two women because they're not having sex.
"I think that that's disgraceful if we're going to be asked to do that."
What really bothered the senator was that any move to give same sex couples equal rights would place them on par with heterosexual married couples.
Gay activist and Democrats Senator Brian Greig raised Senator Harradine's ire when he argued same sex couples should have the right to marry.
"I argue that a long term same sex couple ... is no different to a marriage and there ought to be an opportunity for same sex couples to marry," Senator Greig said.
In what was described as an historic breakthrough, the Labor amendment passed the Senate by one vote.
But it faces rejection when it returns to the House of Representatives.
Labor's retirement savings spokesman Nick Sherry said the laws had to be changed because the government had no right to interfere in the property rights of individuals.
"It is their financial property and therefore fail to see why the state, that is the government should be effectively interfering in the property rights of individuals, in this case same sex couples," he said.
Gay Greens Senator Bob Brown said the vote was a historic moment for same sex couples.
The government said the amendment was irrelevant to the superannuation bills being debated.
©AAP 2003
***Talk of lesbians and gay relationships spiced up an otherwise dull debate on the intricacies of superannuation law in the Senate.
Senators have the Labor Party, backed by the Greens and Democrats, to thank for sprucing up the dialogue.
Labor was seeking equal rights for access to superannuation for gay and lesbian couples.
But that didn't please Tasmanian independent Brian Harradine.
He opposed opposition efforts to allow partners of deceased gays and lesbians to automatically inherit their superannuation.
"Take two women for example. You've got two women living in one household, one of whom is a dependent and you've got in another household you've got two lesbians," Senator Harradine explained.
"What is being proposed by those that are putting this forward is to discriminate against the two women who aren't lesbians.
"Now how do you get over that?
"What you're proposing for us to do is to discriminate against those two women because they're not having sex.
"I think that that's disgraceful if we're going to be asked to do that."
What really bothered the senator was that any move to give same sex couples equal rights would place them on par with heterosexual married couples.
Gay activist and Democrats Senator Brian Greig raised Senator Harradine's ire when he argued same sex couples should have the right to marry.
"I argue that a long term same sex couple ... is no different to a marriage and there ought to be an opportunity for same sex couples to marry," Senator Greig said.
In what was described as an historic breakthrough, the Labor amendment passed the Senate by one vote.
But it faces rejection when it returns to the House of Representatives.
Labor's retirement savings spokesman Nick Sherry said the laws had to be changed because the government had no right to interfere in the property rights of individuals.
"It is their financial property and therefore fail to see why the state, that is the government should be effectively interfering in the property rights of individuals, in this case same sex couples," he said.
Gay Greens Senator Bob Brown said the vote was a historic moment for same sex couples.
The government said the amendment was irrelevant to the superannuation bills being debated.
©AAP 2003
WTG Australia!
movies starring them! <thumbs up from an Aussie> 
