Today the House of Commons was debating the second reading of the putative marriage equality bill. As usual with Parliament, a lot of hot air was spouted. However, a significant number of British MPs are openly gay. Many of them made strong, emotional speeches. One of them is Stephen Williams, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bristol West. He opened his remarks by noting that on Saturday he had attended the opening of an exhibition about LGBT lives at a local museum. That was this exhibition launch, at which I made a speech. Of course I didn’t get quoted in Parliament, but I still got a tremendous buzz out of this, and I’m very happy for my gay and lesbian friends at Out Stories Bristol who must be delighted to have heard their hard work recognized in this way.

Update: You can read the speech here.

By the way, I say “putative” marriage equality because the bill is very badly drafted and, as several speakers pointed out, is more a “creation of a new and different type of marriage” bill than a “marriage equality” bill. However, the bill will now go to a committee stage where some of the defects will hopefully be ironed out. In particular I hope that something will be done for heterosexual couples who want civil partnerships, and for trans people whose marriages were stolen from them by the Gender Recognition Act.