It is now over a year since then prime minister Tony Abbott emerged from a marathon six hour joint party room meeting to thrash out a political solution to the “marriage equality issue”.

That meeting decided that a plebiscite would be conducted some time in the future. Senator Cory Bernardi announced: “I expect my colleagues will abide by the party policy and we can go forward and focus on the things that are truly important to the people of Australia”. This comment alone is enough to tell us that Bernardi and people who share his anti-equality views either fail to understand how offensive their views are, or just don’t care who they hurt.

To say that the totemic civil rights issue of our times for Australia’s LGBT community is not “truly important” just makes me shake my head with incredulity.

My wife Jackie and I started the marriage equality conversation almost two decades ago and since then we have seen a truly remarkable transformation in the way Australians talk about it, the way media reports it and even in the attitude of the LGBT community towards our own right to equality under the law. When this plebiscite idea was announced, my warning radar immediately signaled danger but we thought if there could be a short sharp lead-up then hopefully the Australian people would see the argument as one of civil rights and fairness, and we could deal with the fallout and just get on with our lives.

However as time has passed we have become increasingly disturbed about the damage this so-called “debate” is doing, and will continue to do for as long as it drags on.

I use inverted commas around “debate” because what we are experiencing is not a battle of ideas. There is not one single rational argument against marriage equality. The opponents of equality are trawling beyond the the outer limits of credibility in their increasingly frenetic attempts to paint the simple question of marriage equality for two consenting adults as some kind of rainbow agenda conspiracy theory.

The Australian Christian Lobby is trying to get Federal funding to run a “no” campaign.

Firstly, what is this organisation of religious extremists and why do they expect government funding to conduct a damaging and divisive campaign against a vulnerable minority group on an issue of civil rights? They are even trying to have hate speech laws suspended during the plebiscite campaign, clearly because they must know that they are unlikely to make an impact without using hate speech.

Would any other extremist group expect to receive taxpayer funding to run an anti-equality campaign against an ethnic minority or a religious minority?

The ACL cannot even claim to represent a majority of Christians. What if some other anti-gay group wants funding so they can peddle their extremist views?

Let’s put aside the indefensible waste of money which would be much better spent on … well, just about anything else, like reducing Australia’s deficit.

I want to concentrate for a moment on the mental health consequences of this proposed plebiscite and its accompanying campaign which is already causing unnecessary mental distress and social harm for the LGBT community.

I have seen a hint of the type of hurtfulness we will see come out of the “no” camp, up close and personal. I sat next to the ACL’s Lyle Shelton on the ABC’s Q&A program while he accused same sex parents of ripping babies away from their mother’s breast. Apart from the obvious conflating of two unrelated issues (marriage and procreation), he knows my story, yet he felt he could say that on national television without a hint of embarrassment. He went on to use primary school aged children and their families struggling painfully with gender identity as another stalking horse for his anti-marriage equality obsession.

Over the past year I have had to hear complete nonsense spoken about our relationships and our families. If I can be offended and upset by these sorts of comments, I ask myself what about the effect on people who are less battle-hardened, less resilient?

Just recently I read a distressing story about a teenager in the UK, Lizzie Lowe. At the age of 14 she hanged herself in a local park. An inquest into her death heard that she feared telling her devoutly Christian parents she might be gay. She had reportedly confided in friends that she was struggling to reconcile her feelings with her own deep faith.

She was worried about telling her parents, but her father said her fears were misplaced and she would have received a “wealth of love and acceptance”. Sadly, the subliminal messages she had been receiving about her family and her faith created a potent fear of rejection and she was apparently unaware that her parents would, they said, have been very supportive.

For young people struggling with this core issue of identity, there is great emotional vulnerability. According to beyondblue, same-sex attracted Australians have up to 14 times higher rates of suicide attempts than their heterosexual peers. The average age of a first suicide attempt is 16 years – often before “coming out”.

Subliminal messages are tough enough to combat, but a plebiscite is declaring open season on the LGBT community for negative views about same sex relationships, the relative value of our love and the quality of our parenting.

As a doctor, I am deeply concerned about the damage to self-worth and the fear of rejection which can arise from a public “no” campaign against marriage equality.

We are told that a debate about marriage equality can be “respectful”. Imagine if you got engaged, but before you could get married, you had to hear months of arguments about why you did not deserve to be married, and why you and your partner would not make good parents. It cuts deep.

By its very nature, such a debate cannot be “respectful”. It is inherently disrespectful.

I am not only concerned about young LBGT people. I am equally, if not more concerned about older LGBT people. Many of our elders have been through times of persecution, jail sentences, of being “outed”, of having their social venues raided by police, and having to hide their identity from families and workmates, or risk losing their jobs and families. The “debate” about marriage equality is likely to re-traumatise these people, to have them re-live the traumas of a less enlightened past.

We are being told that a plebiscite is about giving the Australian people a say about a change to the marriage act when it is really a cynical manoeuvre designed to delay or derail the momentum towards equality. In the process it will unleash a barrage of bigotry and negativity dressed up as “debate”.

The ban on same sex marriage which was inserted into the Marriage Act by the Howard government in 2004 needs to be removed by a simple act of Parliament to bring us into line with the rest of the western developed world.

Our elected representatives can block the plebiscite bill in the Senate, and put marriage equality to a free vote in parliament.

As time goes on, the intensity of the “no” campaign will only increase and do more damage. This is messing with real people’s lives.