Marriage Equality Should Be Above One's Own Ego

As you all know, far too well I suspect, I've been moaning about and then campaigning for equal marriage for a number of years. You can't really call me partisan on the issue as I've been criticised in the past by Liberal Democrats for being "unfair" on the party when it still hadn't adopted marriage equality as policy and still when Lynne Featherstone announced what I considered (and still consider) to be inadequate plans for equal civil marriage. And I have in the past attempted to convince myself that I should be conciliatory towards those who have not been in favour of equal marriage until recently.  As we all know that is very much still a work in progress.

As someone who spent a great deal of time getting marriage equality into the news agenda and on to the agenda of the Labour party, it is extremely hard to see people who previously had no interest in the issue suddenly championing it. And I don't mean people who just kept quiet, I'm talking about people I approached directly and asked to support it years ago, especially in the Labour party, and who told me it was not an important issue and not one they cared about. Now suddenly they are begging others to come out in support of it under their own campaigns (Labour for Equal Marriage, for example). It really pains me, and makes me incredibly sad to see this sort of bandwagon jumping on an issue that, in my opinion, is a matter of human rights.

And I've got to get over it. Yes it hurts that in the future people might look back and think Stonewall and Labour were behind the marriage equality struggle. It hurts that campaigners like Peter Tatchell, organisations like Pink News/C4EM and the fact it was more Stonewall's uselessness that pushed the agenda than anything else will probably be forgotten. But you know what? If we get equal marriage, even if it's just civil marriage for now, then we'll just have to swallow our pride and be happy.

The worst part is, this is what Labour activists always tell me to do. Shut up and just be happy and forget about the truth. *sigh* Playing politics is such an unrelentingly shit game for unrelentingly shit people.

I just have to start looking forward to my marriage and move on....

If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist