When I was gay (which always sounds odd, because I didn’t magically stop being gay), I felt neutral to positive on the fight for gay marriage. While I was a world away from opposed, I just felt that we were fighting for something that wasn’t worth the effort. Marriage is based around some fairly nasty ideas about a woman’s role as property, first of her father, then of her husband, and as for all the legal malarkey, it seemed to be covered by civil partnerships.

Now, I see the point, because my partner and I want, eventually, to get married. It’s because we want to be partners, in law, and in public. We want the shared custody of any children we have. We want to be allowed to visit each other in hospital, and take joint responsibility of our finances. None of this is because we have a more inherently serious relationship than any I had with a woman. It’s because there’s already an institution which allows us to have these things. Like many gay people, I had been so disenfranchised by the whole process that it no longer seemed worth the effort.