Had a great time at the Equal Marriage reception at the Scottish Parliament last night. A brilliant mixture of lots of good speakers, lots of great people and wedding cake.

There was a great opening speech from Rae Cahill of the Scottish Youth Parliament. Then, very much enjoyed hearing Rabbi Mark Solomon of the Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Community. Great and very moving speeches also from a couple who are caught in the bind of being required to divorce before one of them can legally be recognised in a changed gender, even though they wish to remain married.

Half time entertainment from the Edinburgh Gay Men’s Chorus and then it was on to some rousing stuff from MSPs from all the Scottish Political parties.

The clear message was that this isn’t an issue of party politics, it is an issue of consensus politics. Scotland has moved to a point where a majority of people believe that the law needs to be changed to allow gay couples to wed on the same basis as straight couples.

That majority runs through the membership of political parties and is apparent in the membership of Scotland’s main churches. It is an idea whose time has come and last night’s reception was a hugely encouraging step along the journey to equality.

Was great to meet up with MSPs, congregation members, fellow bloggers (including Caron Lindsay – yay!) and all manner of people of goodwill from all over Scotland. The place was packed out and people were in high spirits. One of those events when you can smell that change is on it’s way.

Huge respect to the Equality Network for bringing it all off and getting the press release together showing that all the opposition party leaders in the Parliament are now on board. (The SNP can’t comment as the Executive is still in a consultation process, though Alex Salmond’s support is on record too).