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This anti-gay marriage group appears to have copied the bisexual pride flag

By Ross Semple

A group set up to have unveiled their logo – and it bares a striking resemblance to the bisexual pride flag.

The religious ‘Coalition for Marriage’ is hoping to block same-sex marriage in Australia by encouraging citizens to vote ‘No’ in an upcoming plebiscite.

The group emerged to defend “marriage as it currently stands”, and is made up of the Australian Christian Lobby, the Marriage Alliance, the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.

After the group launched earlier this week, social media users were quick to spot a similarity between their logo and the bixsexual pride flag, which was created in 1998 by activist Michael Page to recognise the unique struggles of bisexual people.

How embarrassing.

For their part, the Coalition hasn’t addressed the issue – not even to their 99 Twitter followers – and the logo remains the same. For now at least …

Politicians in Australia’s Senate have repeatedly shot down attempts to hold a referendum on equal marriage. In 2016, the Liberal Party was re-elected with a promise that they would let voters decide on same-sex marriage through a popular vote. However, the vote was blocked, and the result could have technically been ignored by lawmakers anyway. The government is now planning to hold a plebiscite to gauge public opinion on the issue.

The results of the plebiscite, which asks citizens to mail in their responses to a particular issue, will not be legally-binding. It will merely act as a survey of attitudes towards same-sex marriage in the county.

The Coalition launched their campaign earlier this week. “Without fear of being labelled as a bigot or homophobe,” said Michael Stead, Anglican Bishop of South Sydney. “We want to provide a way of having a respectful debate.” Stead says that he wants Australian voters to “hear both sides of the story”, suggesting that pro-equal marriage voices are in the majority in the country.

“They’ve only heard one side of the story, which is very strongly pushing a line that says marriage equality is necessary and that there’s no negative consequences,” Stead said. “And we want to put a contrary view that there are actually consequences to changing marriage.

“So we’re certainly confident that a plebiscite will get to the real view of what Australians think about this, a considered view.”

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