As part of a feature for the BBC News website entitled “The gay people against gay marriage” Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce says his opposition to equal marriage means he’s denounced by his critics as a “homophobe and Uncle Tom”.

Mr Pierce says that for speaking out against the reform in the past, he has been attacked in a derogatory fashion, despite a long history of championing gay rights and being a supporter of Stonewall.

“We’ve got marriage, it’s called a civil partnership and I rejoice in the fact that people like me who are different from straight people can do something they can’t. I relish that.”

The journalist says at a dinner party he hosted for 11 gay friends, only one was in favour of marriage, one was undecided and the rest were against.

Writing for the Mail in June 2012, Mr Pierce criticised Prime Minister David Cameron for pressing ahead with equal marriage and stated: “Well, Mr Cameron, I am a Conservative and a homosexual, and I oppose gay marriage. Am I a bigot?”

In December 2010, Mr Pierce strongly criticised the decision of Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish to have their first surrogate baby, despite the columnist being adopted himself.

He wrote: “Yet I can’t help feeling that his decision to become a father is another grotesque act of selfishness from Sir Elton, and that the child is a little Christmas bauble he and his partner have awarded themselves. How telling it is that he was born on Christmas Day.”