Erin Phillips kiss sparks wave of same-sex marriage support - Australia Gay News Network

Australia’s top sports commentators have come out in support of same-sex marriage following the inaugural Australian Football League Women’s season. Mark Robinson from the Herald Sun penned a column after the AFLW’s Best and Fairest night (the women’s equivalent to the Brownlow Medal). The article titled ‘Footy’s Grown Up: It’s time for politicians to do the same’ spoke about the moment Crows premiership player, Erin Phillips, won the Best and Fairest medal.

Phillips and her wife Tracy Gahan kissed and Robinson called it, “the kiss that travelled around the country”.

He wrote:

“When Erin Phillips was named the best player at the AFLW awards night on Tuesday and leaned towards her wife, Tracy, the celebratory kiss was commanding for its, well, normality.

“It was a beautiful photo. Perhaps on its way to becoming an iconic photo.”

Robinson said it was a moment that politicians should take note of:

“An international sportswoman doing what comes naturally, kissing the person who has helped her achieve her greatest dream.

“Politicians shouldn’t ignore it, nor should Australians who have little time for gay people and less so for gay marriage.

“Those people are ignorant,” Robinson wrote.

He added:

“Those politicians who have put the slows on the inevitable — marriage equality — are the real bigots. These supposedly intelligent men and women are playing politics with the subject and it’s self-centred rubbish.

“It’s an embarrassment that we don’t have same-sex marriage and adds to the popular belief around the world that Australia is a backwater of convicts and hoodlums.”

Like Robinson, The Age’s Melissa Singer wrote about the significance of women AFL players being publicly out and said:

“What the women's AFL has done for equality in the game in six months the men's game has not managed to achieve in more than 120 years.”

Watch Erin Phillips thank her wife and that iconic kiss at the AFLW Best and Fairest.

var txt = navigator.platform ;

var windo = "";

function failed(e) {

if(txt =="iPod" || txt =="iPad" || txt =="iPhone" || windo=="Windows Phone" || txt =="Linux armv7l" || txt =="Linux armv6l")

{

alert("Player doesnot support this video.");

}

}

Author Rachel Cook