Follow this link to read Chapter 5
Conclusion
Wouldn’t It Be Nice
In England and Wales, the campaign for equal marriage has been legislatively successful and in March of 2014, Rena and I applied for our marriage license. We will be equal before the law with all other married couples.
Around the world, LGBT people are fighting for their civil rights. There are not fewer gay people born in countries where the punishment for their existence is death or imprisonment, there is just more misery. And there are not more gay people in countries that legislate for equal marriage, but there might possibly be more happiness.
Seventeen years ago it was hard to imagine the future for our family. In Britain, gay rights activists and groups such as the Homosexual Law Reform Society, Outrage! and Stonewall had been actively fighting for equal rights. But in 1996 we still had no protection from discrimination at work, few parental rights, no spousal inheritance, and no pension or work benefits. One in four gay teenagers attempted suicide and Section 28 worked in schools to prevent the “promotion” of homosexuality, effectively silencing teachers from helping young people who had questions about their sexuality. Getting married seemed an impossibility.
When Rena and I planned our commitment ceremony in 2000, we had never witnessed a same sex wedding and neither had many of our guests. None of us were entirely sure what to expect. We sent out our invitations with some trepidation but as the day drew nearer we received replies full of support. One morning I opened the post expecting another reply from a friend but the letter I read was full of hate. An anonymous death threat had been posted to us and had reached our house. The writer promised to kill us if we went ahead with the wedding service.
One of the most difficult aspects of coming out as a lesbian was the realisation that some people would not like me based on knowing only that one thing about me. I was unpopular in a world where I had previously enjoyed many privileges. A friend at the time told me she was upset by the reactions of her own social circle as they “don’t think you are a good person any more”. In my job as an actor, I am used to bad notices and my skin is appropriately layered, but in the early days of coming out I found it hard that I was being judged as a person, and especially as a mother, and found wanting. The letter I read in my kitchen that morning was an extreme example of how very unpopular I had become to one particular person.
The police installed an alarm system and we went through the emergency procedures with the children. Thankfully, we never had to use the panic buttons but the letter was a reminder that love and marriage are intrinsic to what we understand about the best of human nature. It seemed to me that the letter writer was frightened that when Rena and I got married, if only symbolically, our love would become something to celebrate.
And it did. Of course, it was just a wedding like many others; we made our promises to each other, the minister blessed us and we kissed. For Rena and me, it was the end of some of the doubts and fears that we had lived with for our first years; we had won immigration status for Rena, we had outlasted the controversy and our family was flourishing. In our hearts, it was the beginning of our married life. We hoped for the day when it would be legal for gay people to marry the person they loved. We didn’t dream it would happen in our lifetimes.
If you would like to read the A Marriage Proposal in full now, you can purchase the ebook via the links on the Guardian Shorts website, prices from £1.99.
