Six months on, how many same- marriages have there been?: ****** Thanks for watching, subscribe for more videos: ****** Same- marriage: six months on there's much to celebrate, more to do The Conversation By Paula Gerber It has been six months since Australia declared that marriage is no longer an exclusively heteroual institution. In that time, about 2,500 same- couples have been married, with NSW recording the most weddings, closely followed by Victoria and a and Queensland. Many more couples, who married overseas before marriage equality was achieved here, have finally had their marriages recognised under Australian law. The 2016 Census revealed that there are 46,800 same- couples living together in Australia. Of these couples, 3,142 reported they were the husband or wife of someone of the same (presumably because they were married overseas). If we combine this figure with the number of same- marriages registered in the last six months, it appears that over 10 per cent of same- couples who live together are now married. Lessons learnt from SSM survey I wondered if anyone else was feeling like me — not quite sure how to encapsulate the impact of same- marriage, writes Heather Faulkner. What's changed? During the postal survey, the "No" campaign warned of dire consequences if the institution of marriage was opened up to non-heteroual couples. There was a stream of ads asserting that boys would start wearing dresses to school, students would role-play being in same- relationships, and radical LGBT and gender education would become mandatory. Safe Schools — a national program to combat bullying of LGBT students — came under particularly heavy and sustained attack. So have any of these fears been realised? The answer seems to be a resounding "no". For example, the South Australian government has ceased to fund the Safe Schools program, two years before the service provider's contract was due to expire. As a result, that program will end in secondary schools on July 13. The Government has indicated that it will be replaced with a general anti-bullying program, but this fails to recognise that LGBTI people have significantly poorer mental health and higher rates of suicide than other Australians because of the discrimination and bullying they are subjected to. In Victoria, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has vowed to scrap the Safe Schools program if the Coalition wins the next election. So rather than marriage equality being the catalyst for more inclusive education, the opposite may be true.What about religious freedom? Marriage equality wasn't the end of the fight for LGBTI equality Most Australians probably think that now we have marriage equality, LGBTI people's rights are fully respected. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The campaign around the marriage equality survey also saw opponents assert that allowing same- couples to marry would lead to a significant infringement on religious freedom. To allay these concerns, the Turnbull Government initiated an inquiry into whether Australian law adequately protects rel #Six, #months, #many, #same, #marriages, #have, #there, #been #lgbtplus, #lesbian, #gay, #biual, #transgender, #youth, #safeschools, #rainbow, #samemarriage, #marriageequality