A BALLARAT teenager has penned a heartfelt letter to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, imploring him to change his stance on same-sex marriage to allow her two “loving and beautiful” mums to marry.
In the three-page letter written by Natalie Shaw, 15, she called on the federal government to legally recognise the love between homosexual couples.
The Mount Helen resident told Mr Abbott she had only ever known a life with two mothers – her biological mum Jacki Colmer and her loving partner Nicky Bell.
“I live with my two beautiful mums who got engaged (or, as we say engayed) during the Christmas of 2013,” she wrote. “However, before their engagement they had been together for over a decade, brought a house together, brought a business together and even raised two children together.”
But unlike her dad who has been remarried, Natalie said her mums were denied the same rights.
“I can’t tell the difference between the love my dad has for my step-mum and the love my two mums share,” she said. “The way I see it, I’m so lucky to have four beautiful parents in two different relationships, who love each other equally.”
Last Thursday, Natalie created the Marry My Mums community page on Facebook in a bid to start a grassroots campaign to lobby the federal government for marriage equality.
In less than a week the page has almost 1000 likes.
On Sunday, Natalie shared her personal letter on the page.
It has already been liked by 123 people, commented on dozens more times and shared almost 30 times.
Natalie questioned why heterosexual couples are allowed to marry as many times as they like, but a homosexual couple can’t marry somebody they love even once.
“Many straight couples only have marriages that last a short period of time,” the letter said. “Take Brittany Spears for example. She was only married for 55 hours. And Kim Kardashian, married for just 72. My mums have been together for 14 years. Whose marriage is less meaningful now?”
Natalie said the love her two mums shared was unparalleled.
“Despite every hardship they have faced they still love each as much as the first day they met, if not more.”
Natalie also challenged Mr Abbott to think of his own openly gay sister Christine Forster, a Liberal Party councillor for the City of Sydney and long-standing crusader for marriage equality.
“Not allowing somebody to marry because of their sexual orientation is discrimination,” Natalie wrote.
“Many people say that being gay is a choice ... but if being gay is a choice, surely being straight is too. So tell me, Mr Abbott, when did you choose to be straight?”
Natalie said her dream was simple: a world of equality, where a love for a person of any gender has no legal bounds. “It is my dream that when I’m old enough to have children of my own, they grow up in society where they are judged by the content of their character, not who they love,” she wrote.
“It is also a hope of mine, that you take not only my opinion as expressed here, but the opinion of so many other Australians, and begin the process of change.”
Her stance has the support of her older brother Douglas,19.
“Any love should be equal, gender should not even come into it,” Mr Shaw said. “They are just like any other couple who are in love.
“They should have the same rights.”
Natalie said Australians needed to be given the opportunity to participate in national democratic vote on the issue of same-sex marriage.
A spokesman for Mr Abbott said his office had not yet received any correspondence from Natalie but that any change to the Marriage Act would be a decision for the party room.
To read the letter, click here
Source: The Courier, Ballarat