An update...

Hello wonderful people!
I am sorry it has been so long between mails!

A few people have asked me lately what is happening with WhyCantWeGetMarried.com and so I thought it was well and truly time for a brief update.

1. WhyCantWeGetMarried.com applies for $20,000 scholarship opportunity.
2. WhyCantWeGetMarried.com writes to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
3. Anti-discrimination laws make the agenda at the Australian 2020 summit.
4. WhyCantWeGetMarried.com gets promoted as part of Youth Week celebrations in Queensland

If you would like to add anything to WhyCantWeGetMarried.com, or have any helpful suggestion, we would LOVE to hear from you on the facebook or MySpace group site or at info [a] whycantwegetmarried.com

Thank you again for your ongoing support in creating peace, respect and understanding for inter-racial, inter-religious and queer couples worldwide.

Kristiana

1. WhyCantWeGetMarried.com applies for $20,000 scholarship opportunity.

In February WhyCantWeGetMarried.com applied for a scholarship to the value of $20,000 with the Skoll Foundation in California. We haven't heard back yet but we suspect we were unsuccessful this year do to the extremely high calibre of applicants. We don't necessarily perceive this to be a bad things as we anticipate loads of awesome feedback useful for next year's application!

2. WhyCantWeGetMarried.com writes to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Using a very handy website we have discovered, I wrote a brief letter to the Australian Prime Minister this week. I haven't yet had a reply but I will let you all know if one comes through. The letter went as follows:

Subject: Dear Mr Rudd, I want to support you.

Dear Honourable Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

I am a Queensland constituent who pays all my taxes, contributes positively to the community in a range of roles and represents my nation internationally at conferences. I am very fortunate that I have met the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. We are currently living together and plan soon to get married.

Unfortunately, our marriage will not be recognised under Australian law because it will be a marriage of two women. This means that we are not afforded the same rights as my straight sister and her chosen husband which affects our ability to start a family, qualify for family insurance, family taxes and family health benefits. Basically, it means that because I was born with a love for the right person for me and without specification for that person being a man, I am experiencing significant discrimination.

You have the power to lead a change in this discriminatory situation and I would like you to let me know I can support you, as my chosen representative, to create a fairer system that will recognise my partner and I as a legally married couple with the same rights as my sister and her chosen husband.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to helping you eliminate discrimination from our current parliamentary system.

Kristiana

3. Anti-discrimination laws make the agenda at the Australian 2020 summit.

By a purely excellent stoke of wonderful luck I have found myself to be friends with the former Attorney General of my state who for five terms served as the Minister for Change, transforming discriminatory laws in this state into more fair and equal laws.

This gentleman that I have become friends with asked me a couple of weeks ago what he should present to the Prime Minister and the other delegates selected to attend the 2020 summit as pressing issues to be addressed by our nation. He suggested that he would present an issue on my behalf and asked me what that issue might be.

Naturally, I suggested making a more fair and equal system for inter-racial, inter-religious and queer couples because the current discriminatory system is not only holding us back as a nation, but it is a damaging system that can promote intolerance and disrespect for many members of our community.

4. WhyCantWeGetMarried.com gets promoted as part of Youth Week celebrations in Queensland.

This Saturday just gone I participated in a poetry slam as part of Queensland Youth Week celebrations. I read a poem about travelling I had written and then informed the audience about how much I had learnt about myself and the world while travelling recently.

I then announced to them all that one thing I learnt while travelling was that I was queer. Some people in the crowd cheered. I then told the audience that I didn't know how to tell my mum, and so I had written her a poem called, "Does it matter?" which I proceeded to say to the crowd.

Even though the poetry slam was a part of Youth Week celebrations, there were a lot of people from many age groups in the audience of a couple of hundred. I used this as my opportunity to ask them if it mattered that I (or anyone else) was queer. I then shamelessly promoted WhyCantWeGetMarried.com

I may have only altered one other person's thought processes about equality on Saturday but that would mean that at least one other person's thought processes have been altered.

Thank you again for your ongoing support!

Kristiana
info [a] whycantwegetmarried.com