Posted: March 23rd, 2023

Gays in Australia

The Australian society can be considered as a multi-sexual oriented community due to the vast diversity in sexual orientations. Statistics indicate that the population comprises individuals who are oriented as gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender (Hess & Waller, 2015). However, over the years, the sexual orientation has been a basis of social discrimination in many societies across the country (Goss, 2014). The government has been developing and imposing laws that curb the rising cases of discrimination against the gays in the society. Accordingly, the number of same-sex couples has continually been rising through the years to have the figure tripled between the year 1996 and 2011 (Richardson-Self, 2012).

In spite of the active lobby by the human rights activists and other government agencies, homosexuals in Australia have not realized the anticipated acceptance in the society. In fact, the marriage act in the country does not recognize the union between two men and hence creating a legal hurdle for the gays (Clark, 2015). Moreover, the ruling Liberal-National coalition fails to support gay marriages. Nevertheless, Frew (2015) avers that a considerable number of the citizens of the country approve the gay relations and marriages. Indeed, the support for such marriages has contributed to the rise of gays to about 1.2% of the total population in the country (Frew, 2015). For instance, the 2011 census statistics indicated a total of 33700 same-sex couples and about 17600 gays in the country. In addition, the census recorded about 1.6% of the Australian men population as being gays (Frew, 2015). Therefore, the statistics from the census indicate that the homosexual relations in the country are not as many as the media often portrays.