I have been lucky to have never been hit, knocked down, or bloodied because I am gay. I endured the taunting in school years before I ever realized that I might have been able to take legal action against the school for it. I have recently learned from our gay youth that just because the taunting happens in school doesn't make it right. I have lost jobs, and been denied jobs, because of a sad heterosexism that says a man with a family is more deserving of a job than me, implying that I have no worth to society as a participant because I am not a 'populator.' I have never lost accommodation for being gay, but I have been made to feel less than human in my own home, either by parents or by partners.

Today, in my relationship, a judge has told us that we cannot co-parent my partner's children without first bearing the cost of a trial ourselves, when in fact the courts have precedent to pay those costs themselves. My partner's children live in a similar "heterosexual" situation and no court action needs to be taken, despite the fact that they are witness to spousal abuse in their custodial home and not in ours.

Yes, violence has gone underground. But the effect of a judge telling me that I am unfit without first knowing me is a slap worse than any physical abuse I have received because it demonizes me, in an instant, and the road back from that kind of injustice is a long one.

This government is the first one ever which acknowledges my right to live. Not merely be, but in fact exist. Years from now, no matter what the nature of subsequent governments, the rights I have received in the past four years will still manage to sustain me, and any subsequent rights I may have received will only serve to glorify them. Critics of the government's reforms claim that civil rights cannot be legislated. They are wrong.

Society can change, from the top down, with leadership. But it has to be all or nothing. Changing laws without accompanying education is meaningless.

Children are the future, as the old saw goes, but it is true. Children learn their hate. I believe this government is refusing to teach it, and that will put an end to violence, eventually.