Since last Valentine's Day

Well it is Valentine's Day once more, it takes me back to a thought I had back during the 2015 General Election. In the run up or aftermath of the 2005 and 2010 elections a long term relationship I had enjoyed came to an end because of my incessant campaigning, that wasn't the case leading up to 2015. The reason was because for the first election cycle in a while (especially when I was a candidate) there was no long term relationship.

Of course as many people are aware since 2010 I have been working hard on letting everybody marry their Valentine, that is especially true here in Northern Ireland. Since last Valentine's Day we have actually had a vote in the Assembly where a majority supported that right, only for the DUP to bring it to nothing with a petition of concern.

Now I'm not saying that the DUP are denying me the chance to find love over the last five years, indeed there have been three possibilities who really could have be the other half of a serious relationship. But for one reason or another none of those worked out. But one thing I have been working on consistently since the General election is to ensure that marriage equality exists across the whole of the UK. I always knew that the last hurdle would be here in the part that I was born. There is still work to be done to ensure that the change that the public and now the majority of our law makers are behind comes to fruition. However, the light has started to appear at the end of that tunnel and we feel we will soon be able to reach out and grasp what many thought was impossible.

So I hope that by Valentines Day next year it will be possible for same sex couples in Northern Ireland to at least start to plan their marriages not somewhere else in the UK, or somewhere elsewhere else in Ireland but here at home.