Same sex marriage was legalised within the UK a little over a year ago. It was a great moment, rainbow flags were flying and same sex couples were smiling. However I remember at the time being asked a very serious question, "Should this have been what we focused on?" A year on, I'm re asking myself the same question. Did we need same sex marriage?
The logic used to question it was, there are so many greater problems threatening the LGBT* community, why was the change from civil partnership to marriage the issue people chose to focus on, why not much more deadly issues such as the violence facing the LGBT* community or the high suicide rate of the LGBT* community. Was the existence of civil partnerships enough in itself? After all in September 2010, the then leader of Stone Wall, Ben Summerskill, stated he "expressed and expresses no view" with regard to the legalisation of same sex marriage. This gave me pause for thought, however the more I thought about, the more I thought "no. We did what was right". The step from civil partnerships to marriage was a fundamental part of the movement towards equality.
As a child I loved (and as an adult still love) films like "The Swan Princess", "Anastasia", "Cinderella" and "The Little Mermaid". All of these films have a common thread, they focus largely on a heterosexual romance. In these films the antagonist often tried to stand in the way of the protagonist finding love. I rooted for the incredibly irrational Ariel and the very generic Eric to find each other, not because I thought they were a well written couple, but because I wanted that for myself. I was glad when Ursula failed to stop them and was defeated, again because I wanted hope. I wanted to believe that I would find love, and have a fairy tale wedding like they did. As I grew up I kept the hope they installed in me, even if love seemed hard, it would work out. Either a wizard, fairy or the hero would make it better again if I couldn't. Then everything got derailed when I realised I was attracted to men.
As much as I wanted to keep hope of my fairy tale wedding, I knew it might not happen. I had entered a story where the villain who was keeping me from my happy ending was the very thing that should protect me, the law. The thing that should be my hero was the same force that was stopping me marry. My Prince Eric was also my Ursula. It dawned on me, all of these films gave a simple theory for how to achieve your happy ending- fall in love with a women, get married, and then live happily after. I didn't know if this was possible any more, and if I couldn't get married did that then mean I could no longer proceed to live happily ever after? There wasn't a hero for people like me, just villains. I wasn't living in my own Disney fairy tale any more, at best I was in a Grimm's fairy tale at worst I was painted as an antagonist because of who I loved.
Ultimately society cannot tell LGBT* people that they are an equal part of society while a large number of them are automatically excluded from an institution which is not only incredibly normalised, but was something largely present throughout most of their childhoods. For me, one of the most devastating elements of realising my sexuality was my automatic exclusion from marriage. People could tell me that I could get a civil partnership, but that wasn't the same to me. I refused to believe that I was held as an equal to heterosexual individuals, because something that I wanted so much was an automatic right for them and forbidden for me.
It is impossible to put an estimate on the damage that was caused by the absence of legalised same sex marriage. Even though the absence of same sex marriage was a universal problem that effected almost all lesbian, gays and a large amount of bisexual people, it was simultaneously incredibly personal. However, unlike the issue of violence against the LGBT* community (another very important issue) it never threatened someone's physical health, but instead attacked their mental health and their self-perception.
An analogy to describe how this felt is; you board a bus, but are immediately stopped and told you must stand at the back of the bus. You watch other people board the same bus and sit where they please. They may stand with you, but that is because they chose to and they can then choose to leave you and sit down. When you protest about the situation the bus driver tells you that you will arrive at your location at the same time so you have no reason to be upset. That's what the difference between civil partnerships and marriage were. In principle you received the same benefit as a married couple (in practise you often didn't), but you weren't a married couple. You were different and you weren't held in the some regard and you were publicly acknowledged as different.
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