The religious fundies are right to be worried – gay marriage is by no means the last step along the road to personal freedom.

Lea is the world’s first transsexual supermodel, and she is out on behalf of others

There are plenty of other people who are currently constrained by laws and social norms based on the tribal myths of our Bronze Age ancestors.

Lea, Brazilian-born as Leo, the son of a famous soccer player, struggled with identity issues throughout childhood and adolescence, but was given the personal space to explore her feminine nature through her friendship with Givenchy designer Ricardo Tisci.

He let Leo become Lea, helping explore the changed social role, and providing work opportunities as his assistant, and finally with using her striking looks as a model.

And Lea, despite embarrassments and difficulties including with her traditionalist Roman Catholic family, has made a point of using her position to raise the profile of transsexuals through her own public persona.

She sounds like a brave person, and a noble one. So fundamentalists of all religions are right to be worried that gay marriage in itself is not the end of the road to personal freedom. We are moving into the realms of choice outlined decades ago by SF writer John Varley, whose short story collection “Picnic on Nearside” (originally “The Barbie Murders”) deals with people who change sex every few years at their discretion, and modify their looks (and biology) as they please, yet still have long-term relationships, raise children, and so on.

It’s science fiction. And science fiction is an expression of the same dreams that humanity has always had, to fly, to see and talk with people anywhere in the world, to talk with animals, to go to the moon, to live forever.

Much of that was only on offer through shamans and religions and dreams… until the development of science began to make them all physically possible. Our culture has become rather like that of the Ancient Greeks, with most people following one or another cult of temple-based worship, while a growing number strike out into philosophies that are first speculative, then agnostic, then secular to the point of atheism.

The world of the near future need not be that different from the best aspects of the most cultured civilizations of the past – but with our age-old dreams being increasingly realized as fact, and available to all.