lesbian_marriageA British journalist says she finally realized the value of same-sex marriage after falling in love with a man – despite previously identifying as gay.

On The Guardian‘s Comment is free website, Helen Bell writes:

I’ve always wanted to end up with someone interesting, clever, funny, attractive, liberal-minded and, above all, kind. My partner is all of those things. Having been gay all my life, I just wasn’t expecting him to be male. … [Entirely by accident], I fell in love with a man. It took me a week and a half to ask him out for incredibly awkward coffee and bagels. His exact quote on the subject: “I liked you an awful lot, but as far as I was aware … you were a lesbian.” Good point, sir.

Ms Bell never cared much for the idea of marriage. But now “ridiculously happy” in love, she wants to marry – and in having this desire, she’s come to the conclusion that to deny gay men and women the same legal rights to marriage as straight couples is an injustice:

Now, I see the point [in marriage], because my partner and I want, eventually, to get married. It’s because we want to be partners, in law, and in public. We want the shared custody of any children we have. We want to be allowed to visit each other in hospital, and take joint responsibility of our finances. None of this is because we have a more inherently serious relationship than any I had with a woman. It’s because there’s already an institution which allows us to have these things. … I am still the same person I was when I went out with women. Why, then, am I a better class of citizen now that my partner is a man?

Perhaps Ms Bell could teach something to the many “ex-gays” who, claiming to have changed their sexual orientation through prayer or therapy, respond by actively – and often viciously – opposing equal rights for others?

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