Culture

The NRL Has Publicly Pledged Its Support For Marriage Equality

Something for Tone to think about at the Origin next week.

by Meg Watson  4 July 2015

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Earlier this year, 53 Australian corporations formally declared their support for marriage equality with a full-page ad in The Australian. With big name brands such as Westpac, Qantas and David Jones, the campaign was run in collaboration with the group Australian Marriage Equality and was intended to put pressure on the government to allow a free vote on the matter.

We now know that didn’t really work. Bill Shorten’s bill fizzled out in Parliament that same week and we’re now in much the same position with a new multi-party offering due to be introduced next month. Tone’s position hasn’t changed, prominent government representatives are boycotting the whole thing, and our only shot at a conscience vote seems to be if all the screaming finally pushes each conservative Liberal Party member to the brink of total malfunction.

RIP Eric Abetz.

Regardless, the corporate-led campaign for change has been steadily growing and there are now 391 businesses who have pledged their support; the most recent of which is a pretty big deal.

Just a few days before the State of Origin final, the National Rugby League has pledged its support for marriage equality and their Chief Operating Officer Suzanne Young has made a statement in favour of change. “One of the NRL’s core values is inclusiveness and we have put in place practices and policies to support and recognise the rights of our LGBTI community,” she said. “Accordingly, the NRL supports marriage equality.”

This was also backed up by star Rabbitohs player Thomas Burgess who expressed support for the move in The Sydney Morning Herald . “It’s ignorant and old-fashioned [to think] if you’re male you can only love a female,” he said. “Nowadays, anyone can love anyone. And people just need to get over it … I wouldn’t want them to be unhappy in life.”

Of course, the more organisations who support this issue the better, but this one seems especially inspiring. Though the NRL does have a strong anti-discrimination policy that aims to promote diversity and inclusion, they still have a considerably sketchy history with LGBT communities. There have been multiple incidents of homophobic slurs from high-profile players in the last year alone.

To the organisation’s credit (and the absolute ire of Miranda Devine), such events are routinely met with punishments and huge fines, but they still remain symptomatic of an enduring problem with the culture of Australian sport. In May this year, the Out On The Fields study — the largest survey of the topic to date with participants from the UK, US, Canada, and New Zealand — found that 90 percent of young people felt they couldn’t be honest about their sexuality with sporting organisations and 13 percent of gay Australian men felt excluded from sport altogether. This was the highest number from all countries surveyed.

In acknowledgement of all this, National Director of Australian Marriage Equality Rodney Croome has explicitly praised the organisation for their stand today. “We applaud the NRL for its principled stand in support of marriage equality and for its defence of fundamental Australian values like equal opportunity and a fair go,” he said in a statement this morning. “The NRL’s stance reflects growing momentum for marriage equality across all sections of Australian society.”

In fact, this makes the NRL the third sporting organisation to get involved in the campaign alongside the Football Federation of Australia and the AFL. The latter of which even held its first ever Pride Cup in celebration of LGBT rights earlier this year.

I’m not saying any of this will necessarily affect any actual change, but it’s at least worth keeping in mind this Wednesday night. There’s never been a better reason to boo.

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Feature image via NRL/Facebook.