Please share: The dads who are fighting for marriage equality.

Love this. I worked for fourteen plus years as an Administration Officer employed in a state police force. For several years during this time, I worked in the area of Prosecutions where my role involved the preparation of court briefs (including criminal history background checks, forensic evidence and photos) and across my desk came the too numerous to mention cases of domestic violence, especially repeated domestic violence, where children were involved. I was even 'lucky' enough to transcribe an especially harrowing electronic record of interview revolving around the investigation of a infants murder perpetrated by the hands of the parents (this was over ten years ago, and the voices of the child-murderers still haunt me). There were also cases of child traffiking - again - instigated and controlled by hetrosexual couples, and paedophilia at the hands of "family-men" (with children of their own).

Over four years working in the court system, in each case of domestic violence and child abuse presented, the child was or had been raised by and subsequently a victim of crimes committed by both or one member of a hetrosexual couple. If not the biological parents, the partner of the biological parent.

Every. Single. One.

The reason I raise this is because I've heard it argued that a child will only benefit by being raised in a home with parents of both genders, however children who are raised by couples in same-sex relationships will suffer irreputable harm and damage due to having two parents of the same gender, and that they are more likely to suffer abuse and exploitation. That the only ideal environment for a child is one with both the nuclear "mum and dad" stereotype. That it's not 'natural', or what God 'intended' for a child to be raised in any situation except the one-size-fits-all brand of family unit promoted by certain conservatives and particular religious organisations.

It's also not 'natural' and I highly suspect not what God 'intended' that kids be abused or killed at the whim and hands of the hetrosexual families they were born into.

There are so many children out there who require good, decent, loving homes. After what I experienced in that job with the police, I think the notion that a hetroxsexual centred family unit is the only healthy environment for children to be raised in, is utterly ridiculous and absurd.