Not us, not here, not now

He fears same-sex couples married under state law won't be able to access the federal Family Court when settling disputes over property and custody.

This ignores the fact that almost all couples married at a state level will be considered de factos in federal law and easily able to access the Family Court.

The few who don't live together can access the Supreme Court just like all same-sex couples did before same-sex de facto relationships were recognised nationally in 2008.

As for the children of divorcing parents, matters related to them are resolved in the Family Court regardless of their parent's legal status.

The real test for state same-sex marriage laws is not to be found in the detail of the law or the rhetoric of law-makers.

It is to be found in how these laws are seen by the people who are most directly affected by them.

When my parents married in 1959, they neither knew nor cared that it was under a state law, nor did it matter to them how the details of this state law differed from others.

So today, most same-sex couples do not care who made the law under which they marry or how that law is framed.

All they care about is that they can marry.

This is confirmed by the fact that almost 1000 couples from across Australia have indicated to Australian Marriage Equality that they intend to marry under the ACT's same-sex marriage law as soon as they can.

The marriage equality debate has reached the stage where it not enough for politicians like Barry O'Farrell to say they support reform without doing all they can to achieve it.

Australia is virtually alone in the developed, English-speaking world in not allowing same-sex couples to marry.