“One day I’d like to be a husband and perhaps even a Dad; if I’m lucky enough. For as long as I can remember, however, there have been people putting limitations on me being me. […] I’m here to ask you to remove those limitations and restrictions once and for all and just let me be me.

“I believe in God and I believe that God, in His wisdom, planned for me to be gay. […] The man-made structures in our society, however, are currently limiting my potential to express and live the love that I have the capacity for.

“Love is God’s greatest gift to us. […] I fail to see how allowing me to love and supporting that love as equally as the love expressed by my straight friends could be damaging or destructive to society. I’m asking you to vote yes and let me love as fully as everybody else.

“[…] Elevating the status of gay relationships to the same as straight relationships in marriage doesn’t diminish that which is special or unique about straight relationships; just as elevating the status of black to that of white hasn’t diminished that which is special about black or white, nor has it said that black is the same as white.

“I’d like to think I’d make a good Dad. I’d like to think that I’d choose a partner who would also be a good Dad. If we decided to have kids it would be a very informed decision; it wouldn’t happen casually, as can be the case in some straight situations. […] And that child would receive every ounce of love, support, encouragement and care that I could give it.

“God made me. He did not make the institution of marriage. […] The man-made institution of marriage needs to grow and evolve with our evolving understanding of what it means to be human and our expanding understanding of what society needs.

“It upsets me that two people could commit to one another and that certain others could look at it from the outside and judge it to be wrong. It frustrates me that anyone who passes the church doors from one end of the year to the other without entering into the building can avail of church and state marriage. Yet I can’t.

“It frustrates me that […] I cannot avail of the sacraments as equally as everybody else. Voting yes in the upcoming referendum won’t change church marriage but I’m asking you to vote yes to let the hierarchy of the church know that you support me.

“Let me love. Let me commit. Let me feel supported. Let me be equal. Let me be a husband. Let me be a Dad. […] support and protect me as equally as my straight friends. Please. I’d like to live in a world where I can be as fully me as God created me to be.”

Read the whole letter at her.ie.