Love comes in all flavours! It’s time for Australia to legalise marriage equality.

In Australia, 72% of the population supports Marriage Equality, so why haven’t our leaders acted? Before the next parliamentary sitting on June 13th, it is time to stand up for fair and equal rights for all by letting our leaders know that we demand Marriage Equality!

Imagine heading down to your local Scoop Shop to order your favourite two scoops of Cookie Dough in a waffle cone. But you find out you are not allowed – Ben & Jerry’s has banned two scoops of the same flavour. You’d be furious! Don’t live near a scoop shop – no problem! You can sign up through the Equality Campaign’s website.

But this doesn’t even begin to compare to how furious you would be if you were told you were not allowed to marry the person you love. So we are banning two scoops of the same flavor and encouraging our fans to contact their MPs to tell them that the time has come – make marriage equality legal! Love comes in all flavours!

Our woefully dated federal Marriage Act (1961), as amended in 2004, doesn’t recognise marriages of all couples regardless of gender. It goes even further to say that even weddings taking place in foreign countries “must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia”, closing the door for any couples of the same gender hoping to marry overseas and return home as a happy couple. This needs to change now. 

Tony Abbott’s election promise was to hold a plebiscite on marriage equality. But after a 14-month debate, the Senate saw it for what it was – an expensive and unnecessary exercise that could endanger the LGBTQI community and wouldn’t even guarantee marriage equality.

In February, a Senate inquiry report focused on how to get marriage equality legislation right and ready for parliamentary debate. Although the majority of MPs support marriage equality they need a free vote to make it happen. With over 70% of Australians supporting marriage equality, it is time to get on with it.

Our team will be putting post boxes in all 26 Ben & Jerry’s stores across Australia. Grab a postcard and tell your MP why you want them to support marriage equality now.  We will make sure that the postcards are delivered before the final parliamentary session on June 13th, before the budget is announced –We see this as the next opportunity to achieve marriage equality, so we need to act NOW! Sign up through the Equality Campaign’s website here.

At Ben & Jerry’s we love love, and we think most Australians do too. More Australians than ever before believe everyone should have the right to love who they love – and marry them too, if that's what makes you happy. Let’s make it happen! Go to your local scoop shop to send a message to your local representative and tell them you support marriage equality!