AS MY partner Belinda and I welcome our son Max into our family, the background noise about why marriage is exclusively for heterosexuals continues.
The same issue was burning back when our daughter was born almost eight years ago and it’s something I am often asked about as a gay parent.
Yes, we would get married if we could even though we’ve been together for 17 years.
However, the fact we are not married has had no effect on Belinda and my thinking that we are a couple and family, equal to heterosexual family units.
So, we continue with our lives, while on the side pushing for the laws to catch up with us and recognise us as equal to heterosexuals in every aspect.
I know some ultra-conservative people would see gay marriage as the first step towards the end of the world – with lots of gays getting married and adopting children to their horror.
In fact, at the moment we can’t adopt as couples in SA, but guess what? We can and are having children – been doing so for decades.
We are also fostering children. What a double standard that we are good enough to foster but not adopt.
It’s somewhat easier for gay women than gay men to have families.
I actually feel a lot of empathy for gay men because of that.
We have a gay friend who is a great sole parent to his four fostered children.
I recently read a column about a straight woman considering using a sperm donor who wouldn’t be known to the child as “Dad”.
In the end she couldn’t go through with it, because she couldn’t bear to have a child “without a father”.
News flash – there are heaps of great male role models who aren’t dads.
The most important thing is surrounding children with people who love them, regardless of gender.
Apathy about gay marriage, which is part of gay/hetero equality, is just as annoying as the “anti-camp”.
And it’s just as wrong as someone in the 1960s saying they don’t care whether “people of colour” have equal rights – a very embarrassing view now.
We all know it’s not about the piece of paper with fancy writing that this marriage equality fight is about.
It’s about being seen as equal and making our lives a bit easier, so it’s very important.
Above all we should be able to have what heterosexuals enjoy – that pat on the back from society because we managed to find someone we want to spend the rest of our lives with and possibly create a family with.
And for those who use religion to support their stance against gay marriage, I’d like to think your God, or any god, would put love, trust, respect and equality above all else.
We don’t want to be exposed to views that can incite hatred. This is the 21st century.
Author: Natalie Robertson
Publication: adelaidenow
Publication date: May 8 2013