15+ Heartwarming Celebratory Reactions as Australia Votes ‘Yes’ for Same-Sex Marriage

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Love is love, and we were reminded of this simple fact with the recent marriage equality survey in Australia. On Wednesday, November 15, 2017, it was announced that 7.8 million Australians—61.6% of its voting population—support same-sex marriage and its legalization.

The results were a long time coming; as early as 2007, there was polling to suggest that a majority of the country was in favor of marriage equality. But due to politics, putting public opinion into law has been a slow process that’s years behind other English-speaking countries. In 2004, the then-prime minister John Howard altered the Marriage Act that clarified the definition as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others.”

After more than a decade of activism, the issue came to vote as part of a national postal survey. Although voluntary, 79.5% of voters made their voices heard. Now, the parliament will have to debate how to turn this into the law of the land.

Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said of the survey: “They voted yes for fairness, yes for commitment, yes for love. And now it is up to us here in the parliament of Australia to get on with it, to get on with the job the Australian people asked us to do and get this done.”

The result of the inquiry and its massive support is something to celebrate—and many Australians did just that. See how some of them reacted (including the Sydney Opera House) in the photos below.

On Wednesday, November 15, Australia had a postal survey that voted on the issue of marriage equality.

The results were overwhelmingly in favor of it—61.6% of the voting population said yes.

Throughout the country, people celebrated. These are some of our favorite heartwarming moments.

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Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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