South Australia has announced they will remove laws that discriminate against the LGBTI community.
The 40th anniversary of South Australia’s decriminalisation of homosexuality also marks the introduction of a plan to change laws that discriminate against LGBTI individuals.
The state government is preparing a bill that will modify or repeal 14 pieces of legislation that currently discriminate against the LGBTI community.
The push to change these outdated laws, comes from a report by the University of Adelaide’s South Australian Law Reform Institute that urges the laws to be removed.
One such piece of legislation is the Wills Act.
Premier Jay Weatherill stated on Thursday said “There are also pieces of legislation, like the Wills Act, that discriminate by treating married couples differently from those couples or individuals who are not or who cannot get married.”
John Williams, the Dean of Law at the University of Adelaide, has suggested that the modifications can easily be achieved by changing the language used.
He stated “You can define things not in rigid, binary terms but in much more open terms. Often you can do it by instead of saying ‘opposite’ sex you can just say a ‘different’ sex.”
