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Perhaps the real show-stopper at Sunday's marriage equality rally in Sydney was not the headline names – Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek, the Prime Minister's sister, Christine Forster, or campaigning medico Dr Kerryn Phelps – all of whom spoke passionately.
It was 87-year old Dr John Challis, former Catholic priest and onetime head of the ABC science unit, who had a very personal story to tell.
Tormented in his 30s by the suspicion that he was attracted to other men – and indoctrinated with the church's belief that this was a "grave, unnatural, evil perversion" – he decided to visit a brothel to have sex with a woman.
"Of course, it didn't work!" he told the good-natured crowd, to whoops, cheers and laughter. "As soon as she started to take her clothes off, I felt sick and fled. She earned her money easily that night."
His point being of course that his sexuality was not a choice he'd made but a core part of who he was. His partner of nearly 50 years, Arthur Cheeseman, was too frail to attend, he added, but happily endorsed everything he had to say.
And with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten set to introduce a bill this week to allow same-sex marriage, Dr Challis called on all MPs to "resist the outmoded influence of the Australian Christian Lobby" and vote according to their consciences.
Tony Abbott's sister, Christine Forster, introduced her "beautiful fiance", Virginia Edwards, and asked, "Why wouldn't I want to marry this beautiful woman as soon as I possibly could?"
But she damped down expectations that the Shorten bill would pass this week or even go to a vote.
"At the end of the day that will be probably be a good thing because if it went to a conscience vote next week, the result might be so perilously close to failing that it is not worth taking that risk," she told the crowd.
"There are still an awful lot of people we need to bring along on this journey."
But she revealed that all the Liberal MPs, both for and against marriage equality, whom she had spoken to in the past week had agreed it should be a conscience vote in Parliament.
"After the Ireland result [an Irish referendum vote for same-sex marriage] there is no other other way that the Liberal Party could go," she said.
Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull sent his apologies for being unable to attend the rally, which drew around 1500 people to Oxford Street's Taylor Square – hallowed ground for the gay, bi, lesbian and transgender community in Sydney.
Yet as Ivan Hinton, the deputy director of Australian Marriage Equality, pointed out, "support for marriage equality is not just in Oxford Street, it's all around the country".
Which led Ms Plibersek to rally the crowd with some famous words from a former Labor prime minister, Gough Whitlam: "Men and women of Australia, it's time!"
