Geoff Thomas still feels ashamed. Of using the word ”poofter”, of inheriting the homophobic views of his father without questioning them, and of the way this affected his own gay son.

That was several years ago.

With the zeal of a reformed smoker, Mr Thomas has embraced the realisation that gay men and lesbian women are not ”grubs and paedophiles” and has become a tireless campaigner for equal marriage rights.

Like many children, Mr Thomas’s son, Nathan, was not entirely comfortable with his father’s decision to take on such a public role. He was ”nervous”, he chuckles, when he learned his father was going to ask the Coalition leader, Tony Abbott, about gay marriage on the ABC television program Q&A.

Mr Thomas, 63, is one of the thousands of parents who have mobilised on the issue.

”Same-sex marriage is an evolution of where we’re going as a society,” Mr Thomas says. ”For me, there’s no fear in it. People will still be married and have babies … I always thought we treated everybody the same but the reality is that we don’t.”

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