Dustin Lance Black on starting a family with Tom Daley

As the gay world mourns the loss of two of its most eligible men, newly-engaged Dustin Lance Black has opened up about his relationship with Tom Daley and his desire to start a family with the Olympic diver.

After more than two years together, the pair made a low-key announcement in the Births, Deaths and Marriages section of The Times newspaper last week (October 1), before taking to social media to share a picture of their engagement rings and seemingly confirming that it was 21-year-old Tom who popped the question first.

Having already described the pair’s engagement as a “dream come true,” Dustin continued to wax lyrical about his future husband in an interview for LGBT equality podcast Defining Marriage, telling host Matt Baume that Tom “completely gets” him.

“I met someone who completely gets me, [who] thinks some of my faults are completely funny – and gets annoyed with others! I feel the same about him,” the 41-year-old said.

“I definitely know that we’re better for having each other. We dream bigger. Things seem so much more possible together. Two and a half years in and it still feels like every day is a dream. And we want something bigger than just ourselves. That’s one of the reasons why I fought for marriage.”

And while Tom’s mum Debbie has insisted that the couple will wait to tie the knot until after the Rio Olympic next year, it seems Dustin is already imagining the pitter-patter of tiny feet – and lots of them.

“I grew up Mormon. I’m not Mormon now, but you can take the boy out of the church… I still want to have a lot of kids,” he continued. “The possibility of having a family, and a big family – and a messy family. That sounds so joyful to me. And it wasn’t something I thought I’d be able to do on my own.”

The Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter also admitted that getting engaged has even more emotional significance after his many years of campaigning for equal marriage in the United States, where he helped found LGBT rights group American Foundation for Equal Rights in 2009.

“There’s power in the word, that the word is understood by society and it means that when you say ‘I’m married’ or getting married, it’s a promise you make to the person you love, and I think that promise creates so much. It creates so much potential, and is understood by so many people.”

He added: “It’s so funny, I said it on the Oscars stage. There’s two things I said: I said full federal equality, and we have that now in terms of marriage; I also said that one day I hoped that I’d be able to fall in love and get married. I never dreamed in that time I would meet somebody and fall in love and get engaged.

“I just never knew if that was something I’d be able to appreciate in my own lifetime, honestly.”

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