I Hear Wedding Bells

Tuesday. Fucking hell, revolutionary Tuesday! Screw what I did at school, we got the vote! And I haven’t got a fucking clue what I did at school anyway.

I had my weekly driving lesson after school. We were doing reversing, one of the reversing manoeuvres. I had to pull up alongside a car and then reverse backwards into the space behind it. Pointless exercise but it might be on my test so it’s better to be prepared! I did alright, not as well as driving forwards but then again it is quite unnatural. A few days later, a friend told me her Mam had seen me which was minutely embarrassing.

Not long after I got home, my girlfriend text me to say that she was watching the debate live on the Internet. I nearly dropped all the homework I was carrying (I had planned to get some re-drafts done as soon as I got in but oh no, seeing history made was more important) as I rushed to snap open the laptop. After the age it took to boot up, I got onto the site and spent the next hour watching old people shout about whether they though gay marriage was a good or a bad thing. There were a couple of very good points made, none of which I remember. There was this one guy who had a brilliant speech, who’s name then started to trend on Twitter. Gavin Barwell, I just looked it up. Fucking inspirational. It is truly refreshing to see people fight for my rights instead of hate me for being a tiny bit different.

I cried several times that night. The first because some of the things that were said. They took me back to a time in my life where I was alone and a lot of people said things to me because they thought I was a lesbian. I was told to go kill myself once, to hang myself. He said “You’re gay so you’ve nothing to live for,” and then “I have some spare rope if you need it,”. Those are the worst I’ve had which means I have been very lucky not to have had worse. I have friends who have been physically targeted. The debate reminded me of all that that I remembered but had pushed away my feelings about. I felt worthless, hated and disgusting. I wasn’t even gay. Back then I thought I was straight.

The second time was because people I assumed would be like almost every other politician I’ve known were fighting for me. They were fighting for our rights. They spoke about equality and change and just completely floored me in terms of how grateful I felt to these people I didn’t even know.

The final time was when it sunk in that we had won. I’d switched off the debate because it was becoming repetitive and I was getting to nervous about the vote to watch them. This meant that I missed the announcement! (I did see the announcement later on the News) I knew the vote was at 7pm but I can’t believe it was done in 15mins. I got back just before and was following a live blog from the Guardian. When they wrote the voting numbers I didn’t understand, there was no definite statement, no celebration. I didn’t know if we had won. Finally it sunk in and I understood and I just cried with sheer happiness.

I texted everyone I knew who would care and told them the news. It was a night of pure joy for me.

The reason this first vote was so important to me was because its the first step on a journey that ends in a very important destination. It ends in everyone having the right to pledge themselves legally to another person in an equal service. Selfishly, I care so much because its a journey that ends with me telling a room full of people that I love my girlfriend, I will always love her and that I intend to make her as happy as I possibly can for the rest of my life.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I am proud to be British right now.