Allens supports marriage equality

Allens is proud to support marriage equality.

Allens has a strong commitment to creating a diverse workforce that is inclusive of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) members of our firm. We understand the value of our partners and employees feeling welcome, included and comfortable being themselves among their colleagues and clients.

We believe strongly that our LGBTIQ partners and employees and all members of the community should receive equal treatment and protection under the law and should not be discriminated against.

In a few days, on 17 May, many organisations around the world will commemorate IDAHOT, which is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. IDAHOT marks the anniversary of the World Health Organisation declassifying homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1990.

Allens is proud to mark IDAHOT this year by openly affirming our support of marriage equality.

By issuing this statement, we proudly and openly support the movement for Australia to join its contemporaries (including New Zealand, Great Britain and the majority of the United States) and legalise same-sex marriage. In doing so, we stand alongside the overwhelming majority of Australians and Australian businesses who support marriage equality and we encourage the legal profession and others in the community to do the same.

In 2011, Allens created the ALLin network, which is an internal network that provides opportunities for Allens' LGBTIQ partners, employees and allies to build relationships with each other, our clients and the wider community. Allens was also the first law firm to become a member of Pride in Diversity, Australia's not-for-profit organisation that assists Australian employers with LGBTIQ inclusion through a number of comprehensive programs and initiatives, including the Australian Workplace Equality Index.

As a leading international law firm, we are proud to provide assistance on a pro bono basis to help recognise and enforce LGBTIQ rights in the broader community, including:

• assisting Australian Marriage Equality to intervene in the Federal Government's High Court challenge against the ACT's Marriage Equality Act, through which the High Court recognised the Federal Government's Constitutional power to legislate on same-sex marriage;
• acting for A Gender Agenda in the Norrie decision, in which the High Court unanimously held that NSW laws permit the registration of a person's sex as neither male or female, but as a third 'non-specific sex' category (a significant victory for the intersex community);
• various pro bono matters to assist LGBTIQ asylum seekers fleeing persecution because of their sexuality; and
• assisting to expunge the criminal records of men who were convicted of homosexual offences under repealed legislation in Queensland.

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