Meet the family

Labor Leader Bill Shorten is amping up the pressure on the shaky tenure of Prime Minister Turnbull. Copying the successful model of Opposition to block and destroy, rather than engage, a model perfected by Tony Abbott, Shorten proposes to block the plebiscite. Then, with a nice twist of the screws, will further add to the pressure with a Private Members Bill.

We'll see more of the same moral high ground attention seeking from The Greens with the same approach. Block the plebiscite. Add to the pressure with a Private Members Bill. More tears in the chamber for the poor unfortunates, no doubt. Tears but little real action.

While I reject current rhetoric about a plebiscite being the quickest or only way forward for marriage equality, clearly a vote in the Parliament is the way to go, that vote will never happen in the life of the 45th Parliament. Prime Minister Turnbull's Faustian deal has seen to that.

The plebiscite will cause very real damage, pain, and harm. And let's all ignore the clear affront to the LGBTIQ communities for needing to be given permission to be granted basic rights granted to all others. Not that the plebiscite is even binding on Parliament anyway.

People may bash us, hurl abuse from car windows, pour acid in our drinks, threaten our livelihoods and our jobs, or brand us deviants and pedophiles as they always have.

I'm not the frightened kid I once was. There's a generation ahead of me who stood in pitched battles with police and fought prejudice and discrimination head on. And there's a generation behind me who are out and proud much earlier and less willing to accept mere tolerance as the best they can ever hope for out of life.

If it is time for another fight. And it is. Then let's bring it on.