Today, there were two big votes taking place which affect my life. One will affect which government will rule the country for the next five years. The other has affirmed my own humanity. And you know what? I don’t really care who wins the election now. Everything is in place. The winner will win, and we will sail out of Europe like a weather balloon watching the ground drop away.

And all of a sudden, none of that matters to me any more. Because I just heard that the church I put my faith in to change the world has actually done it. All of a sudden, I can actually marry the man of my dreams, whoever he may be. The Scottish Episcopal Church has allowed gay marriage.

I never dreamed of weddings as a kid. Maybe that’s common among men. Maybe few men do dream of getting married. I don’t know because I never asked. Because I knew that it couldn’t happen. Even when the Scottish Government allowed gay marriage, it still wasn’t a real thing, because I couldn’t get married in a church, among my personal church family.

Some people may find that strange. Why the importance of a church wedding? People get married nowadays in rugby stadiums and parks, in castles and ruins. But it’s about doing it properly. I may never have had the dreams. I may never have planned out colour schemes or table plans. But the one thing I knew was if it were to happen, it would have to happen properly. I couldn’t get married without the church. I needed the presence of God, regardless of his omnipresence, and so it needed to be in his house.

This was not just a vote on church dogma. This was not just a petty piece of church politics, chasing a liberal agenda. This was a vote that said that I am valued. Indeed, this was a vote that said I am human enough to marry the partner of my choice, within my church family, in my spiritual home. This was an invitation out of the cold – the chance to step into the church out of the cold and draughty porch – and actually be a part of it.

And while my thoughts are on myself, and my own personal validation as a part of humanity, my thoughts are with those who have not been as lucky as myself. Those who never found even the warmth under the table, and who responded in one of two ways.

Those who turned their back on the church, thinking it could never change. Those who gave up hope, and walked away from something they wanted to feel welcomed as part of, but which always left them out in the rain. Those who gave up looking for change.

And the others, who couldn’t turn their back on the church, but felt so unacceptable within it that they turned their back on themselves. Those who listened when the church said “This is how to be human” and in doing so, squashed down the sparks of themselves, and turned into something more acceptable to God.

This is a victory not for homosexuality, but for humanity. I know so many people for whom this victory is too late. I know so many friends who felt the blows of the church telling them, even though it was told so quietly, by saying nothing at all, that they were not human enough to marry. Their souls were wrong, were broken, were damaged, and thus their love was not real.

This is not a victory for liberalism, but for humanity. In this, we can be human. We can be loved, and we can have our love sanctified and acknowledged. And we can marry within God’s House, not hidden away, in a back room. I don’t know whether it comes across in my writing, but I am nearly crying here. Because I can see myself as human. I can have the dreams I never allowed myself to have before this moment.

This is not a victory for those it left behind. For the casualties in the fight, the aggrieved, the injured, the wounded and dying. This is the beginning of a period of healing, as those who felt their humanity stripped away can begin to feel it ebb back. And those hurt and wounded by this restoring of humanity to others? Those who lead the charge against? We will not deny their humanity. Nothing is taken away, only added to. In the end, there is only God.