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Rainbow Path In Australia Commemorates Legalization Of Same-sex Marriage

Rainbow Path In Australia Commemorates Legalization Of Same-sex Marriage
Posted at 1:40 PM, Feb 24, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-24 14:44:01-05

It’s been more than three years since Australia voted to legalize same-sex marriage. To commemorate the historic 2017 decision that gave Aussie LGBTQ couples the right to marry, the country’s largest city commissioned a giant rainbow road in a park as a permanent tribute.

Spanning 90 meters (or about 295 feet), the painting of the rainbow road was completed just in time for Sydney’s annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebration.

Take a look at the rainbow path in this tweet from the City of Sydney:

The placement of the rainbow path is meaningful. It’s located at the site inside of Sydney’s Prince Albert Park where same-sex marriage supporters gathered together on Nov. 15, 2017, to hear the results of Australia’s marriage equality postal survey. That survey allowed the Parliament of Australia to legalize same-sex marriages, which it did in December of that year with an update to the Marriage Act of 1961. The area has now been renamed “Equality Green.”

“The name Equality Green is a fitting tribute to that joyous day when we gathered together in Prince Alfred Park to learn that love had won a landslide victory,” said Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore in a 2019 statement.

Here is another look at the path, which ends in the suburb of Surry Hills, in a tweet from Moore:

Equality Green is not the only rainbow road you can find in Sydney. The city is also home to a permanent rainbow crossing in Darlinghurst, which has long been considered the center of Sydney’s LGBTQ community. For at least the next few months, there is also a rainbow path alongside Coogee Beach that was also installed in time for Mardi Gras 2021.

You can see this beachside rainbow road unveiled in this short video clip from 7 News Sydney’s Twitter account:

In a tweet, Moore, who has served as the Lord Mayor of Sydney since 2004, wrote, “I hope those who walk our new rainbow path reflect on how far we’ve come, and the distance yet to travel toward equality for LGBTIQ communities.”

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