British Labour politician Ed Balls says
he was inspired to support equal marriage rights for gay couples by
his gay uncle.
The 45-year-old Balls, the current
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, says this and endorses allowing
gay and lesbian couples to marry in a church in a 60-second video for
the Out4Marriage
campaign, which urges support for a proposal to legalize such unions
in Britain by 2005.
“Twenty years ago [he] came out in
his fifties as gay – and he died, I'm afraid, before he and his
long-term partner could have a civil partnership,” Balls said of
his uncle. “But actually in our family we would have liked him to
have gone further and to have got married. It's what he would have
wanted, I believe.”
“I also believe that somebody who is
religious and a churchgoer, if the church community wants it in that
church, I think people should be able to get married in a church too
… I really hope the government will look at that proposal as well.
This is something whose time has come.” (The video is embedded in
the right panel of this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)