A marriage is announced

Tuesday, February 4th, 2014

Two rings to bind one love

It's been in the pipeline for many months now, but as I am not the kind of person to crave being the centre of attention (says he, writing on his internationally published blog), I haven't been publicising it very widely.
Until now.
Truth is, in 11 days time, I'll be a married man! On Saturday, February 15th, 2014, Gareth and I will be standing side by side, saying vows to one another in a civil ceremony, exchanging rings and pledging ourselves to one another for the rest of our lives.
It's been a long time coming too, because that very same day is our 18th anniversary. It's taken 18 years to get to the stage where we - as same-sex partners - can finally "tie the knot".
Well, that's not strictly true. Civil partnerships have been legal since December 2005 in Britain, it's just taken us over eight years to pull our fingers out (and slip them into matching gold rings).
And the even truer truth is that we've waited so damn long to do this that we're almost out of date straight away. In March 2014 it will be legal for same-sex partners to get married, so we are only six weeks away from a new improvement in the equality laws.
What will really happen is we'll become civil partners (the first time we'll have been civil to one another for years - joke!) and at the end of March we apply for a marriage licence, which will be granted due to the civil partnership being in place.
Some people might wonder what the importance of doing this is after almost two decades co-habiting, but it's important, both from an equal rights standpoint, and just due to the fact we love each other and why the hell shouldn't we? I won't list here all the reasons why being civil partners or recognised as a married couple is better from an equality point of view, you can Google that up for yourself.
But what I would rather you look up is the lack of equal rights for gay people overseas. The UK is a forward-thinking, liberal society that may have taken its time to get to this point, but at least it's moving forwards, not backwards, as in some countries.
Russia - soon to be in the international spotlight thanks to the Winter Olympics - has a shocking gay rights record. Apparently there are no gay people in Russia (population: 143 million).
In Iran, they have been known to hang people for being gay, and in Uganda they are trying to pass an act of Parliament to make being gay illegal, and punishable with imprisonment. There are also efforts to make it against the law not to report a person you suspect is gay to the authorities.
All this hatred and bloodlust in the name of love, the strongest force we have.
What I am saying is that just because gay rights have made huge leaps forward in the UK, doesn't mean people don't still hate me. Hatred exists in the UK, but sadly attacks on gay people are rarely reported as widely in the media as those on straight people.
And most worryingly of all, hatred for gay people in parts of Asia and Africa is actually growing, not dying away.
And this makes it even more important for Gareth and I to exercise the rights we have as a same-sex couple next week. I hope you wish us well, but please do not ignore or forget those who are not so lucky, those who do not feel as free to simply be themselves.

This isn't Gareth and I, but they're just as good looking as us from the back!