Two years after leaving parliament, former prime minister Julia Gillard has declared her support for same-sex marriage.
Her new stance has dismayed those who wondered why she didn’t lead on the issue while she was in power.
Gillard voted against gay marriage while she was prime minister in 2012, telling The Australian Women’s Weekly, amongst others, that marriage was a sacred institution to be enjoyed only by man and wife.
Her position was always curious, given that Gillard herself has never married, and is an atheist. It angered her friend, Penny Wong, who is in a same-sex relationship, and has two children.
Now that Gillard is well clear of elected office, she has decided that she is now in favour of same-sex marriage.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Gillard “told an audience in Melbourne on Wednesday she had changed her view that both heterosexual and same-sex couples should embrace civil unions.”
She said “the 1970s feminist in me” had been concerned about marriage from “a gender perspective” and thought gay couples should “create something new.”
“My position would have been overtaken by history, something which would have caused me no heartburn,” she said.
“Now, given the discussion of a plebiscite or a referendum, I find myself in a world where these assumptions have been upended.”
