Then there was the Mardi Gras and its celebration of lewdness and carnality, and the celebration of the fact that while homosexuals were free to vilify anyone and everyone they themselves were protected by the State's vilification law.

Shortly after this we had the inexplicably named gay pride. I could never see what there was to be proud of in any sexuality.

Steadily since those days homosexuals have been blending into the community, unremarked and unremarkable. Their only difference from the majority is their choice of sexuality, and we have all, homosexuals and heterosexuals, come to see it as only sexuality. There are a great many other choices that put the chooser in a minority no more publicly distinguishable than sexuality.

But it's not all, it's not everyone, who sees sexuality as just another choice. The Greens in their policies make much of homosexuality as a special sexuality, and this week Lake Macquarie's two Greens councillors, Phillipa Parsons and Hannah Gissane, called on the council too to mark it as a special. They wanted the council to endorse, support and promote the Declaration of Montreal and the International Day Against Homophobia and the 20-year-old Cr Gissane wept as she recalled being the victim of a homophobic hate crime "at a young age".

The 10 other councillors at the meeting were unanimous in rejecting the call. The fact is, as I point out in my column in The Herald today, that they're over the notion that homosexuals are somehow special and separate from the wider community, we're over it and Crs Parsons and Gissane need to get over it too.

The day-against-homophobia website, www.homophobiaday.org, defines homophobia as "an aversion towards gays and lesbians or towards homosexuality in general", but surely anyone is as free to be averse to homosexuality as I am to see homosexuality as an exceedingly fine if you're homosexual.

The Greens are caught in a cause that became redundant a decade ago and they're doing no one of any sexuality any favours.

Homosexuality is merely sexuality, no more the community's business than a choice of car. What do you say?