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Same-sex marriage: six months on there's much to celebrate, more to do The Conversation By Paula Gerber  It has been six months since Australia declared that marriage is no longer an exclusively heterosexual institution

 In that time, about 2,500 same-sex couples have been married, with NSW recording the most weddings, closely followed by Victoria and Queensland

Many more couples, who married overseas before marriage equality was achieved here, have finally had their marriages recognised under Australian law

 The 2016 Census revealed that there are 46,800 same-sex couples living together in Australia

Of these couples, 3,142 reported they were the husband or wife of someone of the same sex (presumably because they were married overseas)

If we combine this figure with the number of same-sex marriages registered in the last six months, it appears that over 10 per cent of same-sex couples who live together are now married

Lessons learnt from SSM survey I wondered if anyone else was feeling like me — not quite sure how to encapsulate the impact of same-sex marriage, writes Heather Faulkner

  What's changed? During the postal survey, the "No" campaign warned of dire consequences if the institution of marriage was opened up to non-heterosexual couples

There was a stream of ads asserting that boys would start wearing dresses to school, students would role-play being in same-sex relationships, and radical LGBT sex and gender education would become mandatory

Safe Schools — a national program to combat bullying of LGBT students — came under particularly heavy and sustained attack

 So have any of these fears been realised? The answer seems to be a resounding "no"

 For example, the South Australian government has ceased to fund the Safe Schools program, two years before the service provider's contract was due to expire

As a result, that program will end in secondary schools on July 13. The Government has indicated that it will be replaced with a general anti-bullying program, but this fails to recognise that LGBTI people have significantly poorer mental health and higher rates of suicide than other Australians because of the discrimination and bullying they are subjected to

 In Victoria, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has vowed to scrap the Safe Schools program if the Coalition wins the next election

So rather than marriage equality being the catalyst for more inclusive education, the opposite may be true

What about religious freedom? Marriage equality wasn't the end of the fight for LGBTI equality Most Australians probably think that now we have marriage equality, LGBTI people's rights are fully respected

Unfortunately, that's not the case.    The campaign around the marriage equality survey also saw opponents assert that allowing same-sex couples to marry would lead to a significant infringement on religious freedom

 To allay these concerns, the Turnbull Government initiated an inquiry into whether Australian law adequately protects religious freedom

The panel delivered its report last month, but the Government has not yet released it to the public

 There is concern among human rights advocates that rather than limiting the exemptions that religious organisations currently enjoy from anti-discrimination laws, the Government will expand the extent to which people can legitimately be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity

America testing the limits Such concerns are not baseless, if the American experience is anything to go by

In the US, once opponents of marriage equality had lost that battle, they shifted their focus to arguing that service providers who have religious beliefs that reject homosexuality should be allowed to treat LGBTIQ people less favourably

 This was the argument run in the US Supreme Court case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, in which a Colorado baker refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple

   Although the Supreme Court upheld the claim of the baker, it did so on the narrow ground that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission handled the original discrimination complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop in a biased and unfair manner

 The judges were very clear in stating that service providers should not be entitled to refuse to provide goods or services for same-sex weddings

Justice Kennedy noted that allowing discrimination against same-sex couples would cause: The Australian Christian Lobby has already suggested that this decision lends support to their argument that bakers, florists, motels and even lawyers should be able to refuse to provide goods and services in connection with same-sex weddings

External Link: Tweet by Lyle Shelton    However, as my colleague Luke Beck observed, there is nothing in the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision to support that position

On the contrary, "the Masterpiece case says that people who are accused of discrimination are entitled to a fair hearing and that gay people are entitled to dignified treatment"

More to be done Amending the Marriage Act to allow same-sex couples to wed was a significant step forward

But it is not a panacea. Law reform alone will never lead to true equality. South Africa is a stark reminder of this

It has had constitutional protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity since 1996, but it is still an extremely dangerous place for LGBT people, with high rates of violent hate-based crimes

A 2017 report found four out of ten LGBT South Africans knew someone who had been murdered "for being or suspected of being" lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender

 In Australia, the reform of marriage laws that we witnessed six months ago is just one piece of the jigsaw puzzle, albeit an important one

   Amending laws contributes to transforming public opinion, but achieving long term change requires a more holistic approach

The elimination of discrimination against LGBT people won't be achieved until we have increased positive representation of sexual and gender diversity in films, education, the media and from religious leaders

 We will know we have achieved true equality for LGBT people when we not only have laws that prevent a person being fired from their job or denied a service because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, but we also no longer have people arguing that they should be entitled to do so

 Paula Gerber is a professor of human rights law at Monash University. This article originally appeared on The Conversation

For more infomation >> Six months on, how many same- marriages have there been? - Duration: 10:13.

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Games Inbox: How much are you looking forward to Fallout 76? - Duration: 13:25.

 The evening Inbox discusses the benefits of a streaming video games console, as one reader wonders about No Man's Sky on Xbox One

 To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk    The human factor  I couldn't help agreeing with the reader writing in to say that Fallout 76 has potential disaster written all over it

I do say potential because I think there is a good chance it'll be good, but I also think imagining it's going to be super controversial is perfectly fair

 This mod for Fallout: New Vegas made me laugh as it's meant to simulate the Fallout 76 experience… by adding the sound of people screaming over their mics at each other for no reason

I think we all know exactly where this is coming from and shows that a lot of people have similar worries about the game without ever really seeing it in action

 I just feel the human factor is being forgotten in all this, and the reason we play a game like Fallout is because we know the computer isn't going to go off on one halfway through and start breaking the immersion

Multiplayer games like Fortnite and Destiny are great but then you don't have to speak to anyone and they rarely do anyway

Something like Fallout 76 just sounds like it's going to bring out the worst in everyone and I wonder how many people are really looking forward to it

Dettol PS: Also, doesn't its Christmas release date seem like a really bad idea?   Entry level  I can see their problem but I really hope Nintendo don't decide to make a sequel to the 3DS

It's not the hardware that's a problem it's the fact that they'd then have to start making games for it and surely they've learnt by now that they cannot keep two consoles going at a time all on their own

 They're just not a big enough company to do that and you can see how little time they've been able to spend making 3DS games recently and the Switch still hasn't seen any real boost from the extra focus

 I get that they need a cheap, entry level machine for kids but my feeling is that it's got to be something Android-based that can run their mobile games

I just don't see any other sensible option. Maybe combine it with the virtual console and make it a retro machine and then there'd be something to interest older games and give them a chance to play 'proper' games

 People saying they should make a Game Boy 2 or something are already good but who's going to make the games? Are you willing to have a quarter less Switch games, at least, a year just to have a new portable?Shugga   One day  I was out game shopping with my son at the weekend and as I do every time we do this I picked up a copy of The Witcher, read the back of it (for about the hundredth time), looked at the interesting artwork/graphics, argued with myself internally, and then put it back on the shelf and said maybe next time

 I don't know what it is about the game that stops me buying it because there's a part of me that thinks I might really like it but there's also a part of me that thinks I might not and keeps winning out (I think this may be something to do with the amount of time I expect to have to put in to complete it – just seems like too much life)

 Made me think there might be a Hot Topic in this, i.e. the game that's right at the top of your list to play but you just never get round to playing it for whatever reason

Fully expect to play The Witcher before I pop my clogs though.Chris in Belfast      E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro

co.uk    Life changer  I definitely believe gaming addiction is real. When I was 15 and 16 years old I was addicted to Championship Manager

I would sit in school and write down formations and possible signings rather than doing my schoolwork and unfortunately this coincided with me doing my GCSEs and it definitely contributed to me not doing as well as I could have

 It actually took quite an extreme moment for me to stop playing the game. I lost a cup final to a last minute goal and in my anger, I ripped the disc out of my PC and smashed it but it was in the end a good thing to do

I still play games quite a bit but none have taken over my life the way Championship Manager had done back then

Sam   Size issues  As a gamer who deals almost entirely in digitally-delivered PC games but disc-based console games I will say that if the consoles go digital-only I'm out

I recently got myself an Xbox One and two games: Dead Rising 4 and ReCore. The first thing I had to do when I put the disc in was download a 42GB patch

This took forever and didn't work the first time of asking.  Now, I'm on a fairly mediocre BT internet connection and the download still took hours, for only the patch

How on earth will people play download-only games if their Internet is the same or worse than mine? Even now, never mind the future, games companies must be losing out on revenue due to making some games digital-only? I did no market research so that might not be true

 I think a few things need to happen, one of those is making compression a lot better

Making a 20-60GB file a tenth the size to download would go a long way for people like me who don't play many multiplayer games so don't need a super-fast bells and whistles broadband, which probably represent a large majority of gamers

Of course the uncompressing end would need to be pretty hot too or you would still have to wait ages on the install to the console

Hopefully the 'middle out' algorithm works in real life (Silicon Valley joke).  Another thing is a new way of storing data on a console that can make a 500GB drive stretch the amount it can store, either that or sell the console day one with more storage removing the need for external drive

Bobwallett PS: anyone tried Zombie Night Terror? It's like Lemmings with zombies.     Waiting for the future  The benefits of streaming games to the customer are pretty clear and appealing

Games would run on vastly more powerful hardware than the average punter could afford, hardware you wouldn't need to replace or upgrade

You could also play your games across multiple devices, as long as it has a good enough Internet connection

 There's the rub though. As the failed OnLive and the laggy PS Now service show we are someway from having the Internet required to make streamed games an alternative that matches the fluidity of gaming on dedicated hardware

 But with the Goggle news and Microsoft clearly working Xbox towards a streaming service platform I can see streaming services coexisting with traditional ways of playing games until that unspecified future point comes when the Internet has a 1ms response time

Simundo Jones   1,962,000,000 to go  In response to Krakotow, a major benefit of not having a box under the TV is to open up the potential gaming market to millions of more people

 Phil Spencer said the plan is to get 2 billion people playing on Xbox. That can only realistically be done through a service like Game Pass that runs on phones, TVs, and computers with no further hardware required (other than a controller)

Jeff    Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here    The best Lara  Interesting Tomb Raider/Uncharted Reader's Feature at the weekend

Tomb Raider was one of the games that got me into gaming and Uncharted is my favourite series ever

 Totally agree with 'new' Lara's lack of personality. She's way too serious and I find Camilla Luddington's performance very lacking

She comes across as whiny to me most of the time! I always thought Crystal Dynamics' first three games (Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld) had the best Lara personality wise, which was largely due to Keely Hawes' performance

She delivered quips well, but also injected Lara with an edge of vulnerability as she looked for answers to what happened to her mother

 None of the supporting cast in Tomb Raider stand out to me in any way, they just come off as bland stereotypes

Sure, the cast of Uncharted could be called stereotypes as well (Sully is the best friend/father figure, Elena the plucky 'girl next door' love interest, etc

) but the way they are scripted and brought to life by the actors who mocap/voice them make them feel alive and give Uncharted so much heart

I have grown so very fond of Nate and his little family over the course of the series

 Personally though I always like a fight at the end of a game (Uncharted 4's was an epic sword fight against Rafe Adler on a burning pirate ship by the way!) as the feeling of defeating the bad guy gives me a sense of satisfaction and closure, but maybe that's just me!LastYearsModel   Inbox also-rans  Any news on how the Xbox One version of No Man's Sky is looking? I remember the original PlayStation 4 reviews being a rather mixed bag, but wondered if, after all the patches etc

, it might be worth a look?Kev    Crazy to see how well Crash Bandicoot is doing on all formats now

I'm not even going to bother to say the games aren't that good (they're not) but I am curious to see what the inevitable reboot is going to look like

Leopold   This week' Hot Topic  The subject for this weekend's Inbox was suggested by reader Puro, who asks what game did you have completely the wrong idea about until you played it properly?  Is there a game you assumed you wouldn't like, or was too similar to games you'd already played, which on further investigation you found was totally different to what you imagined? Had you already played the game a bit before you had your revelation or was it obvious from the moment you started?  Where did the wrong impression come from? Was it the marketing, reviews, or just what you assumed from word of mouth? How often are you surprised by a game in this way and how has it affected your subsequent play choices?  E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro

co.uk