When the nation receives the Australian marriage law postal survey in September, people like Mittagong’s Sarah Johanson will wait with bated breath.
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The Flower Flower principal designer and her co-owner Carol Cawsey have put up a sign in their window with a message to vote yes for marriage equality.
Ms Johanson said she was blown away by the support she had received so far. “The support has been overwhelming, I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.
Ms Johanson said the sign had started a dialogue in the store. “A customer was telling me about her son who is gay and struggles. She said it was nice to come in and talk to someone about it. You should be able to talk to anyone about it,” she said.
“We want to increase the awareness and say we’re for equality. No one should be treated differently.”
United Culture owner Patrick Glanville has lived in the Southern Highlands since 1999 and has received nothing but support. “It’s been an open-armed community,” Mr Glanville said. “The general consensus [in the community] is it doesn’t affect other people if two men or two women want to be together.”
Mr Glanville said the opportunity to marry his partner was not about the wedding. “For me it’s not the marriage part of it, it’s about having a legally-binding relationship,” he said. “People think we want the bells and whistles of a wedding. It’s more about being the same as any other couple. “We pay the same taxes and the same utilities, but we can’t get married.”
Southern Highlands Pink Drinks founder Lauren Kelly said since she started the LGBTQI social group 12 months ago, it had created a normalising effect.
The group has grown to about 150 people from across the Southern Highlands. “People say ‘you don’t know the difference it makes’. It lifts the feeling of isolation,” Ms Kelly said. “If that’s what one social night does for a person, imagine what a change in legislation would do.
“We’re not asking to take other people’s rights away, we just want the same rights as everyone else.”
Ms Kelly invited LGBTQI people to become a part of Pink Drinks Southern Highlands. Email shpinkdrinks@gmail.com or message Lauren Kelly on Facebook.