Sometimes people ask me what I call her. I answer that her name is Hilary. Sometimes people ask me why we aren’t married. I answer that there has never been a compelling enough reason for us to get married. I don’t need the tax incentive, I don’t need the (few and arbitrary) legal rights, I’m not religious and, most importantly, she’s never asked me.

No-one is denying my right to marry or preventing me from doing anything but sometimes people make assumptions about us that are just wrong, including that we’re married or that we’re some kind of new age couple.

I don’t go out of my way to tell people that I don’t agree with marriage or that I view it as a religious ceremony a few hundred years out of date. I do correct errors and false assumptions.

If two people, regardless of sexuality or even legal marital status, decide to call themselves partner, husband and wife, husband and husband, wife and wife or anything else they like then I will probably go along with it. By not recognising a traditional marriage as described above I would also not be recognising a non-traditional gay marriage. I do recognise gay marriages and support their right to have this upheld in law even though marriage itself is something that I don’t desire or support.

I recognise gay marriages and urge others to do the same. Eventually the law will catch up with the fact that we treat people the same regardless of their sexuality and put legislature in place to recognise it. The state reflects the will of the people so we need to ensure that our will is firm.

I like this idea, except it wouldn’t make any sense for someone to use it against me for example, just because I am married. I’m all for equal marriage rights. This is only valid if the person you are talking to is known to be actively opposed to gay marriage.
Unless of course you are actually trying to make the point that you honestly feel marriage is an outdated concept that should be abolished all together.