wish-fulfilled. sally and kristi's wedding!

Last week boone and I were incredibly honored to officiate our delta friends' wedding ceremony in Oxford. The weekend was so celebratory and the brides looked beautiful...the best part of the whole weekend was the fact that these two friends began the rest of their lives together. consider this a wish-fullfilled. ;)

see more photos from the wedding here (and more to come).

marriage (dis)parity...

you all know where boone and i stand on the issue of marriage equality... and if you don't, then you can find out here, here, and here.


this isn't really new news, but today's nyt published "The High Price of Being a Gay Couple" about the economic disparity between couples who are allowed the legal and tax benefits associated with marriage (legal unions) and those who are not. I think it's a really well written and researched piece.

Here's what they came up with, "In our worst case, the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs."

YIKES! that's a whole lot of disparity even in the best case scenario.

thoughts?

photo from flickr.

step 1. legally united.

The first thing i have to say about our wedding weekend was that we stressed until the very last minute about whether to get legally united or not.

my parents had brett's family and two of our closest friends who were in town early to our house on Wednesday night for BBQ and we didn't decide what we were going to do until all the dishes had been washed and my parents were in bed.

we finally decided that we would accept the legal rights that come with marriage, but we wouldn't allow them to be in any way associated with our marriage ceremony. instead, we decided to go to the courthouse the next morning and have a judge sign our certificate without flourish or fanfare. we also wouldn't claim to be married until the minister pronounced us so. this way, we would minimize the importance of the legal part of being united (since the spiritual part is what matters to us) and not let the state get all up in the church's business.

we invited our two friends to go with us to witness our legal contract, and wrote a statement to read after the certificate had been signed. It said:

Today we take advantage of the rights afforded to us by the law as a united couple. However, we believe that the legal rights associated with marriage should not be limited to heterosexual couples. Our country was founded on principles of equality but as the institution of marriage currently stands, there is great inequality and injustice. As Christians and Americans we uphold the separation of church and state because such a relationship increases their individual integrity and strength.

we were true to what we believed and haven't regretted the decision.... but i guess there was a moment's pause when we looked up and saw the giant Ten Commandment's plaque hanging behind the judge's desk. ;)

*the photo above is from the "ceremony" that the justice tried to perform for us. by the time that we realized what was going on he was asking us for a ring!

talking out loud...

we're at a standstill. both of us feel strongly that we have to live our convictions out... and one of our major convictions is that marriage is a religious ceremony binding a couple to each other and God. the other conviction is that being legally united in the eyes of the state is a right that every couple should have.

so, the marriage ceremony is absolutely, definitely happening. but, we can't seem to come to a conclusion about whether or not we should sign the marriage license. i mean, if we believe that all people should be afforded these rights, then can we (in good conscience) take advantage of rights other people are excluded from having? isn't that like eating at a lunch counter where some people are barred from being served?

but then again, is standing in solidarity really that helpful? one lesbian lady friend of mine offered as a counter example, "Biz, you wouldn't forgo a great education just because other people don't get them, would you? no. that wouldn't do anyone any good. you'd get your great education and then fight so that everyone else can have one too."

but i don't know that this is the same... anyway, no decisions yet. just a lot of conversation.

love=everyone

boone and i are getting hitched in 6 weeks, and i need to say right now that i have a pretty big problem with the state legalizing same-sex marriage (i.e. vermont and iowa). but i also need to share that i have just as big of a problem with legal opposite-sex marriages sanctioned by the state. in fact, i'm pretty sure that marriage has no place in legal discourse at all.

for me, it's a separation of church and state issue. as a christian (and one in divinity school, btw) i have a problem when the state does what the churches ought to be doing. i mean, marriage is a religious ritual. marriage involves the uniting of the couple together with each other and with God. it involves blessings and ceremony. thus, the communities of faith who do the "God stuff" ought to be making decisions about marriage, not the state.

civil unions, however, have everything to do with the state... with rights, liberty, power of attorney, and wills, and hospital visitations. and civil unions have nothing to do with God, at all. therefore, the states ought to make the decisions about civil unions. unfortunately, however each particular state's constitution is written is how their laws about this should go.(i.e. california's constitution now makes this illegal)

it turns out, though, that the US constitution overrules state constitutions, and it has this little thing called the 14th Amendment. (i'm just sayin') On top of this, it's my personal conviction that if a state affords the right to couples to join in a civil union, then they have to and should allow every possible form and variation of a couple to unite in this way. we're talking about RIGHTS! we just can't give special legal rights to some group and then not give them to others, which is what is happening now in nearly every American state!

now, if a church decides that their particular holy scriptures or manners of revelation doesn't allow for some group or other to be married, well, that's their choice. the church and state are separate.

thankfully boone and i belong to a church where all couples of any sexual orientation can be married. in fact, a lesbian couple married there on Saturday!

the thing is, we choose to belong to this congregation because we believe that they truly get Jesus' message of love and equality. sure, there are passages in our sacred texts that others have taken to be exclusive and hurtful, but give me twenty minutes of your time and a bible and i hope i can convince you otherwise. if not, i'll love you, too. but please don't hurt others i love just because you take a different reading of the same text. but, be advised, i'm not saying that you have to let anyone get married in your church that you don't want to, because you don't.

that's why the law isn't in the church or vice versa...they're separate. if they aren't, then you (and your faith community) can tell people who live in your town that they can't be united in the courthouse and then they (the law) will be able to tell you who can get married in your church. doesn't sound like a good plan, does it? nobody wins.

now, back to the whole wedding thing. here's my plan: let's only use "marriage" when we talk about religious ceremonies of ant kind, "civil unions" when we talk about unity under the law, "commitment ceremonies" for people who don't want to be married under God OR the Law, and "weddings" when we want to talk about the celebration and party that happens after ANY of these events. oh, and "husband" and "wife" (or any pairing of these terms) can be used after ANY of these events for any type of couple. Is this ok?

the best news is that these terms can be combined in any way... for instance, boone and i are getting married, civilly united, and having a wedding. see? this applies to same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

again: marriage=god, civil unions=law, commitment ceremony= unaffiliated, weddings=big party.
oh! and love=everyone.

shoot! i'm supposed to be packing right now.

malice and charity

I am always moved by Lincoln's letters and speeches and i tend to doodle when i'm engaged in and/or nervous about something.

maybe today more than most days... I only wish that after electing Barack Obama as the first black president of the united states, we could also have lived up to our ideals of justice and equality for ALL of our citizens.



where is our charity, for all america?
why have we singled out the GLBTQ community for our malice today?

proposition 8 in california and other similar measures banning gay marriage make my heart hurt for my friends and those around the country who feel deeply and powerfully about their partner, (like i do) and yet are kept from making life long commitments to those they love.



to assume that injustice is only one group's problem (for instance, when mccain said that Obama's election was an historic event for African Americans) is simply misguided. We all suffer when one suffers... and we rejoice when one rejoices. today i did both.