Today, 29 March, will be a particularly significant wedding anniversary for many couples in years to come. Today, England and Wales join the list of countries that have full marriage equality, and scores of same-sex couples across the country are celebrating their new rights by getting hitched. By request of the Deputy Prime Minister, a rainbow flag is flying above the Cabinet Office and the Scotland Office until Monday to celebrate the occasion. Nick Clegg has also recorded a message of congratulations to couples tying the knot this weekend. For many older members of society, these spring weddings are the culmination of a lifelong struggle against oppression and prejudice. For hundreds of thousands of teenagers, this legislation is a welcome official stamp on their passport to adulthood in a country already rated the best for LGBT equality in Europe. It’s a truly generation-defining moment – a victory in the struggle for universal human rights – and something the whole nation can and should celebrate.
It’s staggering to think how far things have come and how quickly. Until three years before I was born, it was illegal to be gay in Northern Ireland. Until I was five, the World Health Organisation considered homosexuality a mental illness. Since then, the British government has equalised the age of consent, repealed Section 28 (which forbade discussion of homosexuality in schools), passed the Civil Partnerships Act (2004) and now the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act (2013). In popular culture, I grew up with Queer as Folk and Brokeback Mountain, Stephen Fry and Ellen DeGeneres. Laws have fallen, prejudice has receded.
The Netherlands was the first country to legalise same-sex marriage, in 2001. Joining the Dutch – in the order in which laws were passed – are Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Denmark, Brazil, France, Uruguay, New Zealand, and now the United Kingdom (Scotland has already passed legislation and will start conducting same-sex marriage ceremonies later this year). Mexico and the US also have regional or partial recognition of same-sex unions. In the UK, the passage of the Civil Partnerships Act in 2004 has meant that such relationships have had legal standing for nearly a decade. But equality is an all-or-nothing proposition. It’s an Orwellian society where some are more equal than others.
When the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill passed into law last July, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote, “I am proud that we have made same sex marriage happen. I have backed this reform because I believe in commitment, responsibility and family. I don’t want to see people’s love divided by law.” Love is an unusual word to find being bandied around by politicians, but it’s a measure of the elemental importance of this law that that’s what it boils down to.
The Prime Minister went on to quote Lord Alderdice from the debate over civil partnerships in 2004: “One of the most fundamental rights of all is the right to have close, confiding, lasting, intimate relationships. Without them, no place, no money, no property, no ambition – nothing – amounts to any value. It seems to me a fundamental human right to be able to choose the person with whom you wish to spend your life and with whom you wish to have a real bond.” Spot on.
A hundred years from now, the institution of same-sex marriage will seem as inevitable and natural as it today feels essential and hard-won. Between now and then there is an awful lot of work to do; sixteen countries isn’t very many, and support for the legislation isn’t universal. This weekend, though, is about celebrating. Many congratulations to those of you getting married today, tomorrow, and in the months ahead. Cheers!