You know, I find it sad that in this day and age we are still going over this subject. As I write this, same sex marriage is not permitted by Australian law. To most of us marriage is a demonstration of our love for one another. A demonstration of our commitment. But no matter how deep the love and no matter how desperately same sex couples need the privileges and protections associated with marriage, two people that love each other are denied the honour of marriage.

Love, to most of us, is what keeps us going. It's what makes us smile even when everything else is falling apart. I was 16 when I succumbed to it. I will never forget the moment I realised I was in love, it felt like nothing else. It was a completion of my heart. He was/is the other half of me.

Nine years later he asked me to marry him and I couldn't begin to imagine how I would have felt if someone tried to tell me that I couldn't marry the man I loved. I know it may sound cliché but marrying my husband was truly one of the best days of my life.

Dan Barron knows his stuff. He's been using an English accent and raising his kids as a stay at home Dad and a working Dad for some good long years and he's been digging his heals in against the hard-headed 'stereotype-loving' types and fighting the good fight and along the way he's accumulated a lot of knowledge and some powerful enemies. At The Northern Dads Group in Melbourne we call him the Stay At Home Godfather and we go to him regularly for advices. We always follow his advices.

Last week we sat respectfully behind his big wooden desk after offering him expensive gifts so that he wouldn't order us some concrete boots and listened to his ideas on different parenting styles. We agreed with everything he said. And I promised to post it here at Reservoir Dad. And I'm also washing and pressing his suit (and I will have it back to you first thing in the morning, as promised, Stay At Home Godfather.)

Were you aware that all men are pedophiles, with the potential to abuse little girls at any moment? I sure as hell wasn’t. But a preschool with parent-helpers is being attacked for allowing men to take little girls to the bathroom. Aren’t they parents to little girls and boys too?

“Perhaps when my daughter is older and can better communicate we can talk about who is okay to touch what, but for my two-year-old, I want the clear idea to be “men don’t go anywhere near that part of my body.” Not the friend’s dad at school, not the friend’s dad at our house while mommy is busy hosting a BBQ. Not the new strange man in class, not the new strange man anywhere,” said Jenna Myers Karvunidis, a parenting blogger, about the daddy-help situation.

To look at me you'd think I was an extremely tired, frustrated unapproachable man with an angry expression but there is a disco inside my head and the mindset of Rambo and the combination of these two forces creates the most mortally dangerous and technically brilliant dancing machine the world has ever seen. I can massacre entire armies with my intense focus and raise them again with the smooth moves only available to those with one foot firmly planted in dance heaven.

Something stopped me from including the above paragraph in one of my weekly ranting posts a few months back – a sudden drop in self esteem. A day before I was about to post it, I was chatting on Facebook, and a close friend of a person I used to talk to occasionally told me that I was quite unique, and even though she used a smiley emoticon in an attempt to disguise her tone, I just knew that she was rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she hit RETURN on her smarmy little keyboard.

This post is sponsored by lasoo.com.au

As soon as I turn up for the regular Wednesday night session at Greasy’s Gym I am aware that something’s up. The usual hardcore crew is there but there’s no hardcore music. And as soon as my Chuck Taylors pat the rubber flooring they move towards me and make me feel as if I'm part of some macho-mancake choreography.  Frank drops to his feet from the chinning bar, Bill racks a 100kg bench press and Nigel cuts his set of fatman pull-ups short.

‘Why did Linden get that free Jack Daniel’s Soft Seat?’ Frank asks.

Linden’s standing next to him finishing a set of high intensity star-jumps. ‘Mate,’ I say. ‘This little gig I have going with Lasoo was meant to stay between me and you. Now everyone’s going to want a piece of the action.’