Sir - Mr Alan Winwood thinks same-sex marriage is a "terrible indictment of modern Britain" (2 April). A strong claim! So what's his strong evidence or argument for this strong claim? All he can offer is to cite "wisdom of the ages", semantic quibbles about the word "gay" changing its meaning, and statements about the "complementarity of the sexes" that would obviously be fallacious if they were even well-formed enough to be arguments.

He thinks there was a "vociferous campaign". What I thought I saw was a quite sudden crystallization of good moral arguments some decades in the making, being met only with nonsense and apocalyptic threats from the well-funded evangelical lobby. The US-style "Coalition for Marriage" and its religious conservative partners were the only really "vociferous" voice.

Mr Winwood's idea that equality was a "pretext" is most revealing. A pretext for what, exactly? What on earth do people like Mr Winwood think the real motivation is? Here is the actual damnable indictment, of old Britain: that the moralising social conservatives, the homophobes and the bigots, cannot even conceive that the justice of equality is a sufficient cause, and a most worthy cause.

Bob Churchill

Bishampton