And I was letting it go. I was letting it go. I was letting it—“Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable, though, listening to a guy standing up and basically saying ‘God says marriage is for a man and a woman and always has been and always will be.’”

He gave another infuriating, ambiguous shrug. “I suppose I’m simply accustomed to traditional ceremonies using slightly archaic language. After all, I do go to work in black robes and a powdered wig.”

“Yes but—” I began, only I wasn’t sure what to but because what I’d assumed would be mutual commiseration had, instead, turned very quickly from a conversation into a debate and was now at serious risk of becoming an argument.

An argument I wouldn’t want to have at the best of times and was particularly keen to avoid having in a minibus in front of my colleagues.

Ana with one n looked over the back of her seat. “I’m with Luc on this one. All the God-Jesus-subservient-women stuff icks me out even if it is just words to most people.”

Oliver seemed to be considering this with his complex-ethics hat on, and I wasn’t sure that was the hat I wanted him to be wearing. “I do see where you’re both coming from,” he offered, “and I recognise that I might simply be overgeneralising from early experiences, but there’s something I find comforting about a wedding that looks like the weddings I went to as a child.”

Now he’d said it, that made a lot of sense. If there were ever people who embodied the weddings-christenings-funerals-and-nothing-else model of Anglican piety, it was the Blackwoods. Only I sometimes wished I could tell which of Oliver’s values were really his and which he’d inherited from his parents. “And it doesn’t bother you that our wedding literally can’t be like that?”

I should probably have phrased that more tactfully because Oliver visibly flinched. “Of course it does. But that just means I wish the Church would be more accepting. Wouldn’t it be rather nice to know that a gay couple could get married in a traditional ceremony if they wanted to?”

“As a regular churchgoer,” put in Barbara Clench from the back—of course she was a regular churchgoer, “I’d be perfectly happy with a gay couple getting married in our church. What bothers me are the people who want a religious wedding when they don’t actually attend services.”