As, one by one, my family and friends get rid of their land lines despite my protestations that I knew their numbers off by heart and I live in a mobile black spot so rarely use one, I have had to concede that you can’t stop society evolving.
Sometimes, as in the case of mobile phones, emails and computers, this evolution is due to technical change. No longer do we wait for the postman to bring us paper bills. No longer do we troddle off to the bank to stand in a queue so we can pay them. No longer do we go searching for a public phone that still has a handset attached.
In other cases, we are forced to change in response to a threat. Medicine has taught us the benefits of cleanliness and a good diet and the dangers of smoking and lack of exercise. Climate change is making us change the way we use power.
And sometimes, evolution in thinking occurs.
There was a time when women were considered the possessions of, first, their fathers and then, their husbands.
There was a time when people of colour were considered inferior.
There was a time when homosexuality was considered unnatural.
Thankfully, we have evolved past this ignorance.
The stranglehold of religion on our daily lives is diminishing.
More and more people are questioning the relevance of dressing up in ceremonial robes, burning incense and chanting responses to worship a supernatural being. We no longer need the fear of some divine retribution in the afterlife to make us obey the laws that protect our society. Morality and good deeds are not the sole province of believers. Women are no longer willing to accept the role of vessels and vassals.
And yet this diminishing minority of faithful seek to stem the tide of evolution.
They want the right to dictate how others must live their lives. They want to decide what a family should look like. They want to determine who is in and who is out, whether it be women in the priesthood or gay people who want to marry. Their exclusive club wants to deny women control over their own bodies and the terminally ill the right to die with dignity.
The ridiculous notion that we will spend an enormous amount of money on a postal survey to determine if gays are equal before the law is an anachronistic obscenity.
Marriage equality will happen regardless of Lyle Shelton and Tony Abbott. It will happen because it is right.
