I like ice cream, I also like driving and West Wyalong

Dear Andrew Leigh,

I am getting married next year, so it's a good thing I'm not gay. If I were, I would have to change my plans entirely - I would have to go out for ice cream instead, or rent a car and drive to West Wyalong, because I would not legally be able to get married.

Now, I like ice cream, Dr Leigh -- I also like driving and West Wyalong, but the fact is I am pretty set on getting married, and luckily, I can choose to do that. My homosexual friends are not so lucky. They are stuck with ice cream and West Wyalong.

You will forgive me for not being entirely serious about what is a very serious issue. The fact is, I am not putting to you a serious argument because as a liberal and an economist I am fairly sure you privately support

gay marriage anyway. It is not an argument I need to win. Rather, I want to ask you to make it your business to put it (or perhaps continue to put it) to your colleagues in the Federal Parliamentary Labour Party (and particularly the homosexuals amongst them) to change government policy to one of supporting the legal and equal marriage rights of homosexual people. I ask you as your constituent.

By March next year, when I am to marry, I want to do so with a clear conscience - that what I am doing is not engaging in a ritual of privilege, but a universally recognisable and available act of love. I want to look my homosexual friends in the eye and know that they too have the right to marry the person they love, just as I have.

I hope I can count on you to be a fierce advocate of marriage rights for all.

Very sincerely,

Aaron Kirby