The Joy of Weddings (When All the Fighting is Over)

Congratulations, first gay Washington, D.C. married couples! Welcome to the fold. In San Francisco, the amazing thing about the first day of gay weddings in 2008 was how utterly uncontroversial it felt. I hope you share this in D.C.

My husband and I were privileged to be involved with one of the very first legal weddings here. Our friends Keren and Jill had held a commitment ceremony several years earlier, and they hurried down to apply for a marriage license as soon as the Supreme Court decision came down and those were being issued. When their wedding day arrived some weeks later — the very first day same sex weddings were performed — I made my way to meet them at City Hall not knowing what to expect. Would there be protesters? Religious groups shouting angry slogans?

But no. I found a small crowd gathered below the steps of City Hall, waiting to applaud and cheer whenever a newly married couple came out. I found a string of tents across the street with ministers ready to marry anyone who hadn’t thought to get a JP appointment, and a group of Unitarians handing out cupcakes.
Inside, peace and joy prevailed. Knowing there would be a run on weddings, the City had sworn in extra justices, hired temps to handle the paperwork, set aside two huge rooms to process the legal requirements efficiently. The six of us who were gathered for Keren and Jill’s wedding sat in a waiting area playing with their son, sharing smiles with the other wedding parties coming and going, and sharing our amazement that after all the nastiness of the reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision, this day should be so calm and lovely.

My husband had to detour to pick up the ladies’ forgotten flowers on his way, and so was late. His entrance became a scene in a romantic comedy. When he leapt onto a bus brandishing two bouquets and begged, “Does this bus go to City Hall?!” the driver told the people behind him, “We’ve got to go — get the next one!” and took off. Three minutes later, as he ran down the length of Civic Center Plaza, a homeless man woke up enough to cluck, “Ooh, you late!” At the security checkpoint he had to go through twice, and when the metal detector squealed a third time, all the guards thrust his wallet and phone at him and cried, “Go! Go!”

And when it was time for our friends’ ceremony, their assigned JP whispered, “I’m supposed to take you to a little room down the hall. But it’s not very nice — do you want to go upstairs?” And so we all gathered in one of the most stunning spaces in the city, at the top of the grandest staircase imaginable, with a couple of reporters and the bust of Harvey Milk all beaming at us. The Associated Press waited respectfully to take the new brides’ picture.

Gay marriage is such a contentious issue, and inspires so much passion and anger and desperation that it’s hard to remember, in the midst of the fight, just how blessed, joyous, and, yes, godly the actual experience can be. May D.C. enjoy this same wonder, and may the reality of that, as opposed to the dark and hurtful rhetoric of the political debate, spread and multiply and change hearts, as real love is always bound to do.

Photo credit: cliff1066