new column:

"Three Weddings"

October 1999:
Upon moving to San Francisco in the summer of 1999 and finding my place here in the City that I love, I fell into the midst of the beginnings of the fight against Proposition 22 on the upcoming March 2000 ballot. California was going through the motions, like many a state around the country, of recognizing that Gay people were for real and so these states' tyrannical, puritanical, and fanatical majority populations were going to move hell, high water, and constitutional liberty to stop us Gays from living our lives.

Then, in the middle of my move to California, and this inaugural battle over marriage equality, my sister was preparing to get married to her fiance that fall. In Las Vegas. At the Excalibur Hotel and Casino. In full costume as a 'Maid Marion.' While her fiance was in full costume as a knight of some sort. And they were married by a man dressed as a wizard with some sort of purple colored cone on his head with lightning bolts along the cone and throughout his long purple gown.

As I watched my family enjoy this marital spectacle, for the quick 20 minutes that the hotel gave us before the next couple were ushered into the 'chapel,' the fight over Prop. 22 and the nation’s DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) were well within my thoughts. And I could not help but ponder the logic of denying this family member the right to marry his own choice of a partner-in-life.


February 2007:
I flew home to witness my brother's wedding in our family church this past February. It was technically not the formal wedding, but an impromptu version for the Kansas City folks in the family. You see, my brother was marrying a Guatemalan woman after the two of them had met while living in Los Angeles. She and he had officially married in late 2006 in Los Angeles to begin the 'paperwork' in order for her to become a U.S. citizen through the marriage. And apparently there is a ton of paperwork to do in order to make her citizenship permanent. It takes quite a while, but it happens all the time with heterosexual relationships and it's legal.

My brother and my now sister-in-law are very much in love and have now had three weddings to showcase this fact. One: in late 2006 to begin the paperwork; two: in Kansas City for all my relatives to witness and hold a reception for his side of the family; and then three: in Guatemala in May for her side of the family and to have it officially done in full regalia.

I was there for the second one in Kansas City and I could see the power and strength of love through marital ceremony. I have never seen my brother so happy. And his wife is so excited as well. And I was overjoyed for them both.


April 2007:
I flew again in April, this time across the country, back to my old life in Washington, DC, where I lived before I moved to San Francisco in 1999. One of my best friends was getting married, again, for his family’s participation, to his husband. Of course, it wasn't an officially, legally sanctioned event. They had done that in Canada once before, even though it’s not binding here in the U.S. And of course, being that the ceremony was in that great state of lovers, Virginia, there would be no legal paperwork attached to this event.

But the love was no less real here. In fact, it almost felt stronger in some ways. The fact that these two men had found each other in this hardened world of heterosexual-oppression, and that their families were there to witness and participate in their ceremony, showed that the love was stronger than the supposed rules of society.

My friend's mother stood up and spoke before them as they held hands and warmly smiled. She said how proud and happy she was for her son to have found his mate, and to have brought such a wonderful new son into her life. His grandmother spoke of how she remembered bathing him as an infant and now she is witnessing him marry.

The wonderfully ironic thing for me at this wedding ceremony was that, other than the two grooms, I was the only LGBT person at the event. Everyone witnessing and participating were straight members of their families and friends, in the southern state of Virginia. And everyone loved and respected and joined in the grooms' happiness and love.


These three weddings in which I had the honor and pleasure of being a participant illustrate quite clearly that our fight for marriage equality is fundamental to our everyday lives, and that we are moving closer and closer to the day when our ceremonies will have official marriage certificates attached to them too. Because those same majorities of straight people are starting to realize that the love between two people, regardless of gender, is just as strong and meaningful. And this is because we LGBT people have shown them that we’re every bit as human as they are, by simply being open with our lives and living our lives in full.