Much has changed since Benjamin Britten’s experience as a gay man in 1950s

For composer Benjamin Britten, Aldeburgh was home. Tonight, the village's shingle beach on the Suffolk coast will fill to the strains of his greatest opera, Peter Grimes, in a special open-air performance.

For years, the rural village was used to seeing Britten and his long-time lover, Peter Pears, who were partners for 20 years before they came to Suffolk and remained so until Britten's death in 1976. Everyone knew that they were in a homosexual relationship, but nobody said, remembers a villager, since everyone liked and respected the composer.

It was not always thus. In the 1950s, Britten was investigated by police officers, under pressure from home secretary David Maxwell Fyfe’s demand for enforcement of anti-homosexuality laws. Like most people, Britten was not brave. Frightened by the police attention, he pondered encouraging Pears to enter a sham marriage to distract attention. Nothing was done in the end.

In December 1976, Britten died, honoured by his homeland. In the days after, a suited official arrived at the couple's home with a letter of condolence for Pears from Queen Elizabeth. In the far from tolerant world of the 1970s, the monarch had made a clear statement, one that quickly became public and attracted comment – the first time such a message is known to have been sent.

Same-sex marriage
On Tuesday night, the House of Lords overwhelmingly rejected a bid to stop debate on the British government's plans to introduce same-sex marriage, a move that is causing extreme discomfort for many Conservatives. The two-day debate, which attracted more than 90 speakers, was frequently passionate on both sides, with genuinely held, deep feelings coming from those on both sides of the debate.

Britten's shadow fell on the House of Lords. Lord Berkeley, his godson, told fellow peers the composer had been in a relationship that was regarded as "illegal, criminal" in its day, but was, in fact, "a marvellous and inspiring marriage".

However, such a description could never be acceptable to opponents. Lord (Geoffrey) Dear, the architect of the bid to stop the legislation, said they found themselves in an Alice in Wonderland-style debate, where words were being made to mean whatever people wanted them to mean.

“We find ourselves in a world where an ill-considered Bill seeks to overturn centuries of tradition, heedless of public opinion and the views of religious leaders and blind to the laws of unintended consequences. It seeks to alter totally the concept of marriage as we have always known it; it seeks to divide a nation with an argument that hides behind the concept of equality when in reality it is about sameness, and it stands on its head all considerations of electoral mandate,” he said.

Uncomfortable with the divisions that have emerged, but uncomfortable, too, with both the Church of England's past treatment of homosexuals and the idea of marriage for them now, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby urged peers to reject the plans.

“It confuses marriage and weddings. It assumes that the rightful desire for equality, to which I have referred supportively, must mean uniformity, failing to understand that two things may be equal but different,” he said. The result was confusion: “The concept of marriage as a normative place for procreation is lost. The idea of marriage as a covenant is diminished. The family in its normal sense, predating the state and as our base community of society, as we have already heard, is weakened,” said the archbishop, who faces strong opposition to same -sex marriage from Anglicans in Africa.

Just days before the debate, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon had spent time helping her daughter, Charlie, to choose a wedding dress, where the two mulled over the importance of the marriage ritual. “If Charlie wanted to marry Katherine instead of Kane, would I feel any different? No, I would not, and I would want other parents to have the same joy as I in celebrating the marriage of their children, whether they love people of the same or the opposite sex,” she said.

Opposition
Despite a considerable campaign by those opposed to gay marriage, the peers in the end voted overwhelmingly to approve the legislation, which will not come into force in Northern Ireland. If the legislative timetable continues as expected, the first same-sex weddings should take place next summer – less than a decade after civil partnerships, once controversial – were introduced.

In Aldeburgh, new flowers lie on Britten’s grave in the cemetery of St Peter and Paul’s Church, the place he chose rather than the splendour of Westminster Abbey. Peter Pears lies next to him. Together in life; together in death.