The Australian government has been forced to adopt its Plan B on same-sex marriage - a postal vote - after the Senate rejected a second bid for a compulsory plebiscite.
Labor, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team on Wednesday had the numbers to tie a vote at 31-all, meaning the move was defeated.
Liberal backbencher Dean Smith, whose attempt to initiate a parliamentary vote on gay marriage was stymied by his party colleagues this week, supported the government but chose to sit with the crossbench.
Emotions ran high during the debate with Labor senate leader Penny Wong urging the government not to expose her children with her female partner to hate.
"We love our children and I object, as does every person who cares about children... to being told our children are a stolen generation," Senator Wong told parliament in an impassioned speech, referring to comments made by the Australian Christian Lobby.
"It's exposing our children to that kind of hatred."
"This ain't a respectful debate already." Here is the key part of @SenatorWong's remarkable speech against the #ssm plebiscite. #auspol pic.twitter.com/xFgvTPzl1H
— Luke Henriques-Gomes (@lukehgomes) August 9, 2017
The government was trying to restore the defeated legislation rather than putting it back to the lower house because it wasn't confident its own members would support it, Senator Wong said.
The government will now proceed with a $122 million postal vote which does not require legislation.
A postal vote would see ballot papers in mailboxes from September 12 and a result declared on November 15.
There would be no publicly funded "yes" and "no" campaigns.
Senator Wong described the option as an expensive and damaging stunt.
The money could pay for three million GP visits, or thousands of teachers.
Instead it would be spent on a useless opinion survey given that conservative Liberal senators, such as Eric Abetz, have indicated they will not change their vote regardless of the outcome, she said.
"They simply cannot countenance people like me and others being equal," she said.
Acting Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann argued a public vote would be a "unifying moment for the country", enabling those on the losing side of the argument to more readily accept the result.
He rejected claims the debate around a plebiscite would be damaging, insisting the government trusted the Australian people to have a respectful debate.
Earlier, Malcolm Turnbull won rare praise from Tony Abbott over the prime minister's decision to hold a postal ballot on same-sex marriage.
"Well done to Malcolm Turnbull and the government for making sure this is going to happen," the former prime minister told reporters in Canberra before outlining his argument for a 'no' vote.
"If you don't like same-sex marriage vote 'no', if you're worried about religious freedom and freedom of speech vote 'no', if you don't like political correctness vote 'no'."
Voting 'no' would "stop political correctness in its tracks".
Mr Abbott vowed to respect the majority view of Australians.
"And I call on both sides of this debate to respect whatever result the plebiscite gives us," he said.
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