We continue our series exploring the last 12 months by focussing our attention on everything that happened in July.
Marriage Equality dominated our news for a third month in a row as momentous for change in Australia was fueled by major developments in Ireland and the United States.
As the US Supreme Court made marriage equality a reality across the UNited States, across the globe millions of people changed their Facebook profile pics to have a rainbow overlay.
Following Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s declaration that marriage is something that should be owned by the whole parliament rather than a single party, news came that a multi-party bill would be put forward.
The Prime Minister reacted by first saying that marriage was not a priority for the government, highlighting his committeemen to keeping Australian’s safe from terrorist as the top priority, then after the bill was announced the PM said he doubted it would ever get to a vote.
Advocates called for the PM to “play fair” noting that he was the one who called for cross-party legislation to be put forward, and highliting his pre-election commitment that the Liberal party would decide on whether a free vote would be allowed when legislation appeared.
Here in Perth the local community showed it’s growing support for marriage equality in the lead up to the massive Get Up / Australian Marriage Equality rally. OUTinPerth featured the PM on the cover of our July issue, asking “Whose side are you on?”
Conservative MP Eric Abetz chastised the media for their overwhelming coverage of the US Supreme Court decision, while failing to give equal coverage of the decision to not allow marriage equality in Austria.
After publishing an opinion piece in The Age, Senator Abetz took to SKY NEWS where he described same sex marriage as a “fad” and said allowing it would open “Pandora’s box.”
A week later Mr Abetz called on all the members of the government’s front bench who supported marriage equality to tender their resignations.Front bench colleague Christopher Pyne described his comments as “not helpful”.
Former Prime Minister John Howard defended introducing the alterations to the marriage act during his tenure.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce delivered his message to marriage equality supporters, telling the ABC’s ‘Insiders’; “Everybody doesn’t get everything they want.” saying same sex marriage was like trying to put a diamond in a square hole.
Joyce then argued that we shouldn’t allow marriage equality because our Asian trading partners don’t allow it. Australian Marriage Equality leader Rodney Croome labeled the concern as irrelevant, while New Zealand‘s trade Minister pointed out that they’d had no problems.
Labor’s Penny Wong labeled PM Tony Abbott as the biggest road-black to marriage equality happening in Australia. While colleague Joel Fitzgibbon added his name to the growing number of politicians in favour of change.
Perth saw it’s biggest ever rally for marriage equality in Russell Square. Among the speakers, member for Perth Alannah MacTiernan called on the PM to live up to his pre-election commitment, The Greens senator Rachel Siewert encouraged people to get involved in the campaign, also on the podium was Brian Greig, Ivan Hinton-Teoh, the Rev Peter Emmanuel and Samantha Davies.
Meanwhile the NRL said they officially supported marriage equality.  They were soon joined by other football codes. An Italian sports magazine tackled homophobia in sport by putting kissing gay rugby players on the cover.
Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson spoke to OUTinPerth about his ‘Resilient Individuals’ report on LGBTI people in Australia. The report supported marriage equality, Wilson’s boss Gillian Triggs delivered a speech saying parliament had failed on the issue.
Liberal senator Arthur Sidodinos said he was open to marriage equality as long as religious institutions were given exceptions. Former Howard Minister Amanda Vanstone called on PM Tony Abbott to allow a conscience vote on marriage equality.
A Sydney student made a cool animation explaining where we were up to in this whole marriage equality dilemma.
Showing that corporate support for marriage equality is not just a city thing, 62 business in the South West of Western Australia took out newspaper ads to show their support.
News came that Prime Minister Tony Abbott was now considering a plebiscite on marriage equality.
A columnist for a newspaper in Wagga Wagga was criticised for saying that marriage equality would lead to an increase in HIV transmissions.
Labor’s Penny Wong and the Liberal’s Cory Bernardi finished the month debating each other at the National Press Club.
The Labor party decided to keep the status quo and not make their MPs support their pro-marriage equality position, at least not until 2019.
The blog Humans of New York reminded us all of what it was like when we were young when it shared an image of a young man worried about his homosexuality, Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton sent him some encouraging words.
The ABC’s fact checking department looked into claims that “children are better off with a Mum and a Dad’ and found not a lot of evidence to support the claim.
Russia revealed their ‘straight pride‘ flag, based on a French straight pride flag the Russian family had more children and a chubbier mother, an Australian version would appear later in the year.
Tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky was under fire after he said almost every female Tennis player was a lesbian.
There was a huge rally for marriage equality in Taiwan.
A report claimed that gay men kept in detention on Manus Island were facing abuse because of their sexuality. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told us it was an issue for Papua and New Guinea, not the Australian government.
Here in Perth there was outrage when the Department of Culture and the Arts installed sprinklers around the King Street Arts Centre to drive away sleeping homeless people, the situation didn’t improve when the Police Minister suggested homeless support groups were to blame for not working hard enough.
WA MP Don Randall passed away suddenly, Mr Randall had supported removal of legislation that discriminated against LGBTIQ people but did not support marriage equality.
A Pride festival in Scotland announced that Drag Queens would no longer be welcome, before changing their mind, and apologising.
The Australian Christian Lobby launched their campaign calling for the federal government to stop funding the Safe Schools anti-bullying campaign. It was revealed that WA religious Minister Margaret Court compared the program to communism. There were reports that Education Minster Christopher Pyne told the program to stop making comments about marriage equality.
An advertisement from the WA AIDS Council received complaints after it was run in a local community newspaper.
There were shocking scenes at Jerusalem Pride when six people were stabbed, one young girl died of her injuries.
