So that's it. The law has changed and from now on we can get married. This seems so simple, so obvious, so clear. Fall in love and get married. The natural progression of a relationship that most of us grow up to expect, from the first moment we understand the concept of "happily ever after".
Perhaps this is what the objectors have most feared; gay people being included in the natural order. Such an order is always defended most vigorously by those who do not wish to share the wealth of social inclusion. Skin, gender, sexuality. Society has struggled to accept that these differences do not preclude the right to live with equal dignity and freedom of choice. It was the natural order that some should be enslaved, that women should be subjugated to men, that gay people should be extinguished. The arrangement demeaned us all.
This is what is meant by true equality: the recognition that the freedoms and rights of others are important in themselves, not only because they increase the sum total of human happiness but because we are all enriched by those we include. With marriage comes the understanding that gay relationships are equally valuable not just to the couple but to society. And in turn, our responsibilities exist not just in spite of our sexuality but because of the very relationships we wish to celebrate.
Admittedly, my own concept of love and marriage was formed at the knee of the storytellers. I could not care for biblical interpretations, whose precepts seemed to include a liberal dose of incest, polygamy and force. That seemed a bully's charter. As did the bloodthirsty history of the establishment of the Church of England as represented by our most famous monarch, Henry VIII. "Divorced, beheaded, survived, divorced, beheaded, died" we chanted in the playground. Rather, I understood that the truth of the human condition lay in the hands of the poets and playwrights, the novelists and the songsmiths.
From The Owl and the Pussycat to The Frog Prince, I learned that love comes in all shapes and sizes. From Romeo and Juliet I learned that love thwarted by feuds and families ends in tragedy. And from pantomime, I learned that the dame has a soft heart and the best princes are girls.
So when I grew up to be a lesbian, I refused to accept that that meant I could not take part in the big love stories. That my love was to be the art-house classic and not the main feature. I had sucked at the narrative marrow of our culture's bones and I did not want to be starved in the specialist sections of our closing libraries. I wanted Shakespeare. I wanted Emily Brontë. I wanted Richard Curtis.
We had our first celebration in 2000. We both wore dresses: Rena's was a little more elaborate than mine. We walked down the aisle and were blessed by a Unitarian minister. Although the wedding had no legal standing and was described in the papers as a "bizarre lesbian ceremony", I believe that every single one of us who witnessed that day would have said Rena and I were married.
Ten years later, we entered into our civil partnership. We were so thrilled to be legally recognised, so happy to celebrate again with those who loved and supported us. Because we were renewing our vows, we thought again of how much they meant. We made sure we still believed in our promises. We realised we were still married.
Now we will crave the indulgence of those witnesses one more time. Not just yet: those who are civil-partnered cannot get married "again" unless we get divorced first. But we are in no rush: the law is there, and we will get married soon. Before we do, we will talk late into the night, about what it means, about how much we have changed and how much we have stayed the same. About love.
And then we will walk down the aisle again, as naturally as anyone else. We will be part of the history of marriage, of the poetry of romance, of the narrative of love. Of course, we can't know for certain if it is happily ever after. But it sure feels like it.