THE push to legalise same-sex marriage is unlikely to pass Parliament with number crunchers on both sides saying the necessary support is not there.

Even if Tony Abbott grants a conscience vote, which a number of his MPs are urging him to do, a private member's bill would fall short of gathering the minimum 75 votes necessary to pass the House of Representatives.

One Labor operative who has begun calculating numbers, estimated about 50 of the 72 Labor MPs in the lower house support same-sex marriage. Of these, a handful would not vote for it in the Parliament for fear of an electoral backlash, he said.

One MP has told the Herald he has a large ethnic community in his seat and although he supports gay marriage, his electorate does not and he could not vote for it.

Emerald green is the colour of love among the Irish gay community in Sydney this week.

About 60 Irish expats will be marching in the Mardi Gras parade on Saturday alongside a float decorated with shamrocks, followed by a party featuring Dannii Minogue.

"Mardi Gras is like gay Christmas," says Rory Nee, a doctor originally from Wexford in Ireland, now an Australian citizen living in Sydney.

"In parts of the world you can be killed for being gay, but here we are embraced. No-one blinks an eye."

Eric de Courcey, a lab technician originally from Waterford in Ireland, says the Mardi Gras parade, which started as a protest march in 1978, is still politically relevant.

"Back in the 70s it used to be about getting gay across to the mainstream. Now it's about all the different types of gay," he says.

"There is a whole range of sexualities out there and we want to educate people about that and celebrate it. But for me, it's a real kick to be in the Irish float.

"It's not often I get to feel proud of being Irish and gay at the same time."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-31705213

Have a great time tonight...

Only Tony Turdy blinks an eye at old ladies doing sex phone to survive financially... He still reject gayness... He is old fashioned that way, though he is very upfront in shirtfronting people...

Couples like Penny and Janet, and Keri and Christine - who originally married under Australian law as opposite-sex couples - can, strictly speaking, stay married under Australian law. However, because Australian law defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman - to the exclusion of all others - these couples' marriages are only valid until the point people like Penny or Keri want to change their legal sex. Currently, Australian state laws require people who apply to change sex on their identification to be unmarried - a condition some legal experts argue is bigoted in intent.

Transgender people in their position therefore face a grim choice: (1) remain legally wedded to their partners, but deny their affirmed sex in official documentation; or (2) affirm their sex on their birth certificate, and be forced into divorce.

Some Australian state politicians are pushing to change this. In October 2014, NSW Upper House Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi and Lower House Independent Alex Greenwich introduced the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment (Change of Sex) Bill. The bill argues that a married person who has undergone sex-affirmation procedures should have the ability to update their birth certificate without having to get a divorce. Similar bills have been put forward in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. None have yet passed into law.

So far, Penny has acquired a female passport, but she has stopped at getting a female birth certificate, to ensure her marriage to Janet remains legal.

Janet now adds that as much as the past 17 years has seen Penny undergo a profound, visible and obvious transition, Janet has had to fundamentally change, too.

"The biggest thing for me was the realignment of how I viewed my sexuality and the realisation that I wasn't heterosexual; that I was bisexual," she says.

Christine and Keri Bristow can relate. "Christine's had to transition just as much as me," Keri says. "A lot of people don't get or understand that. I'm transitioning mentally and physically, but Christine's transitioning mentally - just as much as me - in getting her head around it."

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/transformers-the-unique-challenge-of-changing-gender-within-a-relationship-20150306-13jm4n.html

Come on Australia, we can do better than being petty about partners sexuality... Let desires, tendencies and what is, happen.