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MANY people will have their personal views about why Premier Lara Giddings accelerated the gay marriage issue last weekend.
At a time when the Tasmanian community is polarised over the future of forestry and also the proposed Bell Bay pulp mill, it was problematic whether we needed another divisive issue.
Perhaps Ms Giddings wants to be remembered as a social reformer and gay marriage is a desirable achievement on her political epitaph.
Some cynics claim the move was to appease her Greens partners to stay in government. Perhaps it was to pre-empt a similar move by Mr McKim and to appeal to the sexual reformist middle ground.
Ms Giddings claims that it was to remove a final piece of discrimination and on pure humanitarian grounds that is a sound argument.
Also, when it comes to the polls, nearly two-thirds of Australians apparently now support same-sex marriage.
However, the difficulty for Labor in Tasmania, and nationally, is that the move will alienate a strong and vocal conservative and religious section of society.
There will be a significant number of rusted-on Labor voters who will simply never accept same-sex marriage legislation and may well turn to the Liberals in frustration.
Many of those in favour of same-sex marriage are probably already in the Labor-Green tent so there is no political traction there for state Labor.
The added sting in the tail is that pressure will mount for the Prime Minister to respond - if Ms Gillard doesn't take it to the High Court for resolution she implies, by inaction, tacit approval.
With just 12 months until the next federal election this is dangerous no-man's land in which to stumble.
Liberal leaders Tony Abbott and Will Hodgman will oppose same-sex marriage legislation all the way to the ballot box simply as a point of difference but for some people it will be significant enough to sway their vote.
- MARTIN GILMOUR, editor?