The Daily Telegraph‘s front page has been widely criticised online for managing to suck the joy out of a moment that most of the media have celebrated. But its greatest crime is using a dated ’90s sitcom reference that would surely be lost on most people, and a dad joke about how miserable marriage is. The grainy still of Al Bundy from Married with Children isn’t one of the Tele‘s most creative or interesting front pages by a long shot, but it at least provides a counter-point to the largely similar front pages of other newspapers around the country today. The Sydney tabloid editorialised in favour of a Yes vote during the campaign, but part of its modus operandi is to be talked about and position itself in opposition to the left elites, and that’s what it’s done with today’s front page.

Equally unique, Hobart’s Mercury‘s moving front page marked Tasmania’s vote for changing the law — above the national average — with reference to the state’s “shamefully late” move to decriminalise homosexuality just 20 years ago — the last state to do so. 

For a niche take on the vote, the Australian Financial Review interviewed Business Council of Australia CEO Jennifer Westacott, who had a professional and personal stake in the vote.

But by far the most popular way to mark the historic day was with rainbow colours and a “yes” on the front page.

 

The commentators have reacted today largely as expected. Andrew Bolt has taken the opportunity to have a go at the Yes campaign:

The Yes vote would have been even higher, I suspect, if there hadn’t been so much abuse and bullying by Yes supporters, with Christians picketed, preachers sued, no-campaign ads censored and the Australian Christian Lobby threatened.

Miranda Devine says Australian would accept the vote with “good grace” (but):

Those of us who opposed this change to our foundat­ional social institution accept with good grace the verdict of 61.6 per cent of our fellow Australians who voted Yes. But don’t forget that leaves a significant minority of Australians who voted No. Almost 4-in-10 Australians did not want to want to change the definition of marriage — and their view deserves ­respect. More than two-thirds of the electorates which voted No are in Labor’s heartland of western Sydney.

One of the most moving pieces to come out of the vote was from the ABC’s Jason Om, who wrote of his relationship with his Cambodian father and family:

My dad came to Australia from Cambodia in the early 1960s as an international student and was spared the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. My Buddhist Cambodian family have struggled with my identity.

Cambodian relatives are desperate to ask, “When you get married?”

My answer of “when it is legal” is usually met with dumbfounded expressions.

The Tele’s front page might run counter to the joy the majority of Australians felt at the vote’s result, but it doesn’t detract from pieces like Om’s and David Marr’s for Guardian Australia yesterday. And at least it stands out from the rainbow crowd of other front pages.