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Posted: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 05:59:02 GMT

FORMER High Court judge Michael Kirby has revealed he and his partner of 49 years, Johan van Vloten, will “probably” get married next year.

In an interview with Fairfax, the renowned human rights campaigner confirmed the couple were “thinking about it”.

“We will probably take the plunge; it may be on the 50th anniversary,” he said.

Kirby made his first official acknowledgment of his partner in the most discreet of ways — via his entry in the 1998 edition of Who’s Who — although the announcement was not reported by the media until the following year.

The pair met in a gay bar in Sydney in 1969, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in NSW.

Kirby introduced van Vloten to some of his relatives a fortnight after they met, which was reportedly the first time some of them realised the then 30 year old lawyer was gay.

Kirby, who served on the High Court from 1996 to 2009, initially announced he would boycott the government’s postal survey on same-sex marriage, but later revealed he had changed his mind and voted.

Since same-sex marriages became legal in January this year, a number of high-profile gay and lesbian couples have walked down the aisle.

Tony Abbott’s sister, Sydney city councillor Christine Forster and her partner Virginia Edwards got married in February, while Liberal MP Tim Wilson and his long-term partner Ryan Bolger wed earlier this month.

Another high-profile proponent of the ‘Yes’ case for same-sex marriage, Ian Thorpe, said in December that he and his partner Ryan Channing had no immediate plans to tie the knot, but it was pleasing to have the right to do so.

“I would like to get married at some point in the future. To take it seriously, we would like to do it at the right time,” Thorpe said.

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