Here Come the Brides

Sidney and Diane met at an April Fool’s Day party in 2006.  They began dating the next day and fell in love.  They weren’t quite ready to get married in the summer of 2008, when California was granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.   They told me they hadn’t wanted to get married “just because they could,” and while they were (of course) opposed to California's Proposition 8, they weren’t looking to make a political statement with their nuptials.

By year-end 2008, however, Sidney and Diane had reached a decision.  They loved each other.  They wanted to spend their lives together.  They knew that the State of California wouldn’t give them a marriage license but they wanted to get married anyway.   They wanted a wedding for their families, for their friends, for each other.

As I sat with Sidney and Diane through our pre-marital sessions, I saw the tenderness and respect with which they treated each other, the true delight they took in each other’s company, and their mutual determination to share in life’s struggles together. 

Time and again through these conversations, I was reassured of my decision to preside at their wedding.  What Sidney and Diane had asked of me rang true with my sense of justice, with my pastoral calling and with my understanding of God’s love as made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ.   I could not refuse.  

When I arrived on site the day of the wedding, I checked in with Sidney and Diane.  They were in separate rooms, each having chosen their own traditional white wedding dress that the other had never seen.  After people settled into their chairs, the prelude started – K.D. Lang’s “Simple” – and I took my place at the front of the outdoor patio. 

As I had agreed with Sidney and Diane, I stuck very close to a traditional wedding liturgy, substituting only a few words here and there, and using the phrase “partner in marriage” in place of “husband” and “wife.”

The crowd was not very churched and so for my wedding message I chose to share one of the oldest three-point sermons in the book.    I explained that the ancient Greeks spoke about three kinds of love – filos (brotherly love), eros (erotic love), and agape.  “Agape,” I explained, “is a self-sacrificing love that wants the very best for the other, is willing to give all for the other, and is offered without precondition.  We experience agape in the form of God’s love and when we find this kind of love we celebrate it as a gift from God.   Marriage presents to us perhaps the most celebrated opportunity to put this kind of love into practice in our own lives.”   

I went on to tell people that I have a hard time explaining agape, or even describing it … but, I said, “I know it when I see it.”  I turned to Sidney and Diane, and told them the truth: that I was honored that they had asked me to perform their wedding.

As I looked around the patio I saw many people at the edge of tears, among them several gay and lesbian couples holding hands.  After the wedding, when these couples greeted me enthusiastically and thanked me for my words, I was reminded how much a blessing from the church can mean even to those who are estranged from it.

If I was pleasantly surprised that God “showed up” so decisively at the wedding ceremony, I found myself overcome by unadulterated joy as a spirit of celebration took hold of people at the reception.

 A slideshow documenting “Diane before Sidney” and “Sidney before Diane” culminated with a series of photos entitled “And then they met.”  As the two families laughed and ooohed and aaahed, it dawned on me that this was the first time that many had seen the depths of the couple’s three-year romance.

After Sidney and Diane danced a well-executed ballroom number for their first dance, their fathers were invited to the floor.  As was everyone else in attendance, I was swept away with delight at the sight of the two brides, in full white dresses, twirling in their father’s arms, to a song I suspect may became an anthem in the movement for marriage equality, the Beatles’ All You Need is Love.   

By the end of the song almost everyone in the reception hall was singing the chorus in unison: “All you need is love.  All you need is love.  All you need is love, love.  Love is all you need.  Love is all you need.” 

Now that same-sex couples enjoy the right to marrry, here is what will happen: the brides will keep coming, and the grooms will, too, and sometimes they will come walking down the aisle with a partner of the same gender.   And as young heterosexuals attend the weddings of their gay and lesbian friends, they will more and more think of religious institutions who look askance at homosexuality as irrelevant, and rightly so.  An entire generation of young Americans appears ready to march right past the church, and the church’s stance on homosexuality is among the reasons why.

As they often do, the toasts at the reception delivered the coup de grace.  Sidney’s best man, a gay man, broke down in tears as he offered his toast to the newlyweds.  Diane’s sister, her maid of honor, called her “the best big sister in the world.” 

A string of heterosexual couples sang Diane’s praises as a nanny, her chosen profession.  One mother, surrounded by four teenage daughters, thanked Diane “for being such a wonderful role-model for my girls.”

Then members of Sidney’s family – have I mentioned that Sidney is African-American? – stood to extend their best wishes.  A cousin summed it up with a few simple words, addressed directly to Diane: “Welcome to the family.”

Finally, it was Diane’s father’s turn.  I have to admit that my first thought, when I saw him get to his feet, was that perhaps he had had too much to drink. 

But as he walked over to stand beside his daughter and her bride, it was clear that he was overcome by emotion, not alcohol.   “Diane, my darling daughter,” he said.  “I haven’t always understood what was best for you, but I have always wished you happiness.  Now I understand.  And it gives me great joy to know that you have found someone who makes you so happy.”  Then, lifting his glass to the crowd, he declared, “To Diane and Sidney!” 

I can’t wait for the day when all our churches will offer wedding toasts like this to their gay and lesbian sons and daughters.