First, same-sex marriage. Next, equality!

The Queer Avengers reject conservative scaremongering, which seeks to undermine widespread support for marriage equality. The group has recently come out in support of Louisa Wall's bill, while stressing that marriage equality is not the end of LGBTI struggles.

“63% of voters support marriage equality,” says Queer Avenger Sara Fraser citing a recent TVNZ poll. “Conservative lobbyists want to undermine popular support through fear.”

Recently, conservative groups have launched a petition against marriage equality, demanding that supporters of marriage equality state their opinion on polygamy. Fraser says that both same-sex and polyamorous relationships are being scapegoated, and share a common struggle.

“Conservative scaremongering sets marginalised people against each-other,” Fraser argues. “We have to stand with all people excluded by the current system.” Fraser highlights the example of whangai adoption, an indigenous form of adoption within communities, which has been eroded by 1950s adoption law.

Fraser observes that family structures, and definitions of marriage, change throughout history. “There isn't even one consistent family structure endorsed by all churches,” says Fraser. “The Church of Latter Day Saints used to promote polygamy. Interracial marriages were illegal in the USA, and rape within marriage was legal in New Zealand until 1985. It is time for another reform to marriage law, to bring us closer to equality.”

"Homophobic groups have a unhealthy fetish for form over content. For them it's about one man and one woman. For us it’s about consent and equality.”

The Queer Avengers argue that the struggle for gender and sexual liberation is larger than this one reform. "Our ultimate aim is to look at issues beyond marriage," Frasier explains. "Our group was founded on the platform of addressing the problems of regular homophobic and transphobic street violence, suicide and homelessness among LGBTI youth and inadequate health care for trans* people.”

"These issues require that we fight for more than marriage rights, they require a wider social transformation for gender and sexual liberation.”
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