REALLY QUICK THEN BACK TO WORK

I'm sort of treading new ground here and I'm also in something of a hurry seeing as I should do some revision for my exams which are next week (ARGH, ARGH, ARGH) anyway I read this article in le Guardian about what them gayers actually think about gay marriage and I thought I may as well stick my oar in briefly. I don't think the author of the article was really asking for a long ramble about what a real-life quincer thinks about it all but, ya know, what with having to get my friend to change my facebook password in order to stop me picking fights with people on there I have not had my fix of vomiting my opinions for well over a week and I couldn't stop myself. Yeah so I sent this email, have a read.

Hello I don't know if you'd be interested but here are my thoughts on the gay marriage debate, as a card-carrying gay male.

I have no intention of marrying and I think it's a hideously outdated institution that the gay community shouldn't be doing anything to support. If you love someone then great, I don't see why you need to have some official document from the government to confirm this. There are a few reasons however for getting married:

1. Economic reasons. If you have a home setup where one of you earns more but the other one contributes in other ways such as by looking after the children or keeping the house nice etc, then getting married means you have a sort of financial contract which guarantees you some sort of financial compensation should the relationship go tits-up. If you've focussed less on your career during the years you were together and you've allowed your partner to become the main breadwinner then I think it's fair that the courts should take this into account during divorce settlements.

2. Another economic reason: should one of you die it's a lot simpler to inherit everything.

That's basically it. That and the whole process of 'getting married' where you have a big stupid day for everyone to be all happy for you.

With civil partnerships we already have all that stuff, so I don't really see why we need marriage for the gays.

There is however one reason why I think marriage should be allowed regardless of whether couples are same-sex or opposite. Transsexual people. Currently if you decide to undergo a gender reassignment and are already in a marriage or a civil partnership then you have to get divorced or 'have the partnership dissolved' and then enter a new marriage/civil partnership. This seems totally unfair.

If one of the partners in a heterosexual marriage underwent transition and they wanted to remain married, I think this should be allowed. And if you are to allow same-sex marriage for some couples, then you may as well allow it for everyone.

So somewhat reluctantly I support same-sex marriage despite the fact that on a personal level I find the whole thing rather tiresome.

There are lots of much more serious issues facing the LGBTQ community such as combating bullying in schools and harassment in and out of the workplace, increasing access to medical treatments for trans people, fighting HIV/AIDS to name just a few.

The whole marriage debate is pushing a conservative assimilationist agenda onto the gay community and encouraging us to accept the heterosexual model of relationships instead of being able to choose for ourselves to form relationships on our own terms. We're being told that longterm one-on-one monogamous relationships are what we should all aspire to, and if our lifestyles don't fit the status quo and we're not interested in gay marriage then we're on the same side as the religious conservatives who seek to oppress us.

That said, I found John Sentamu's recent article more than a little nauseating so maybe we should make gay marriage legal just to annoy him.

A few other things: The Daily Mail reports that only a quarter of homos would actually wed. Right. I'm just wondering, if they were to ask straight people 'would you get married?' how many would say yes? The Mail do seem to be saying that because 75% of gays say they don't want to get married, then the other quarter should just shut up. God I love the Daily Mail.

YERRR anyway that's all for now folks, I'll be back soon with slow anecdotes, love letters to journalists, a reappraisal of the queen of pop , thoughts on sexism, pornography, sexiness and sex; and I'll be re-entering the debate on trans issues but this time with the approach of a grammar nazi. Stay tuned yo.