UK Gay Couple Got Engaged at State Rooms of Parliament

James Hanson (left) and Joseph Patrick McCormick with Speaker John Bercow | Image courtesy of PinkNews

"I've been thinking of popping the question to James for a little while," Joseph Patrick McCormick, the Deputy Editor of PinkNews, said. "And I thought that there could be no better location to do so than in Parliament itself and in front of Nick Clegg, the man who kicked off the moves towards same-sex marriage."

The couple will be among the first gay couples to marry when the first same-sex marriages are held in England and Wales next year. It's believed that this is the first same-sex proposal to have taken place inside the Speaker's House.

The engagement was announced first by the Speaker, John Bercow, who said (in such a wonderfully convoluted, British political manner, we might add): "First, I hope that you will agree that it is a testament both to the greatness of PinkNews and to the magnificence of this occasion that the deputy editor of PinkNews, one Joseph Patrick McCormick, who has come out of from the shadows to reveal himself, has this evening, here in Speaker's House, a matter of minutes ago, proposed to his partner James Hanson. And the proposal has been accepted! So, I would argue, and I do, that PinkNews, on the one hand, and the Speaker of the House on the other, have established their reputations as matchmakers."

Oh, and the proposal was accepted, by the way.

Watch a video of the proposal below: