The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings (15 page)

Joining
Tryst
Handfasting
Relationship Covenant
Covenant of Love

This Is
NOW:

Just about everyone calls it a wedding.

The Quintessential Wedding Toast

At our wedding in 1992, Jane and I were fortunate enough to have in attendance a dear friend, Jay Wolpert, who is undeniably the world's finest toastmaster. He happens to be heterosexual, but he so completely understood the Big Picture—the essence of why we chose to get married—that I couldn't have articulated it any better than Jay did in our wedding toast. Reading this today makes me realize both how far we've come and how much more we have yet to do.

—Tess Ayers

When we first found out that Tess and Jane were getting married, my first reaction was, very frankly, What for? To prove their love to each other? I mean, they've been together for eight or nine years; that would seem to me proof enough. To underscore their commitment? Okay, but this is the ninth decade of the twentieth century, and the sad truth is, marriage doesn't always mean commitment. Well then, I thought, it must be for the legal protection that marital status affords their relationship. Now, I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that whatever legal protection their relationship enjoys at this hour today, it probably enjoyed at this hour yesterday.

So, what's it all about? What it's all about is Tess and Jane taking what's theirs. And what's theirs is the right to partake in a ritual that has been held by the straight world for its exclusive use for thousands of years, even though gay people have been around for as long as straight people. What it's about is Tess and Jane not going gently into a sexual ghetto, but instead insisting on the recognition of public ritualistic articulation of love being everyone's right. It's about exchanging rings that symbolize that love. Finally, it's about being willing to endure the awkwardness, the in-sensitivity, and the abuse that will almost certainly come from the wearing of those rings.

Now, I think that's kind of gutsy. Maybe even a little heroic. Because maybe there are two people in this room today who, because of this wedding, will say, “Let's do this too.” And maybe then two people who, after witnessing that wedding, will get the confidence to do the same thing in their own right. And maybe pretty soon a shibboleth disintegrates, and maybe pretty soon a wall falls, and maybe pretty soon the happy day arrives when what used to take guts takes no guts at all.

You know, many years from now, when humankind bursts out of the jungle onto the clean, green veldt of tolerance and understanding, no one will remember, or perhaps ever have known, about the billions and billions of microseconds that came before wherein something occurred that just nudged the human parade one inch further through the thicket. And as long as we're here, I would submit to you that maybe this is one of those microseconds.

Not only do we thank you, Tess and Jane, for the happy times with which you have buoyed us, the insights with which you have enlightened us, the kindnesses with which you have sustained us, and the talent with which you have enriched us. We thank you also for the courage with which you inspire us. And if it is your fate never to have your parents take pride in that courage, be assured that one day your child will.

I looked up a word in the dictionary a couple of days ago, and as I suspected, what the word has come to mean is only its fifth meaning. And the number one meaning is the one I had hoped it would be: “a woman noted for her courageous and daring acts.”

So finally, here's the toast: To Tess and Jane. May they be forever what they are today: heroines together!

A Timeline of Same-Sex Couplings

God knows this book is not intended to be Homo History 101. But if all of this gay and lesbian wedding stuff seems incredibly “now” to you, and you think it's just too trendy, consider what your lesbian and gay ancestors have done throughout the ages. (And check out how quickly things have accelerated in the last decade or two!)

Second century:
Iamblichus writes the novel
Babyloniaca,
which includes the characters of Berenice, the queen of Egypt, and the female lover she married, Mesopotamia. At the same time, Lucian writes
Dialogues of the Courtesans,
in which Leaena describes a woman of (where else?) Lesbos who is married to a woman from Corinth.

During the Roman Empire:
Male soldiers are often wedded to one another prior to battle.

Before Europeans arrive in the New World:
A total of 133 North American tribes (including the Navajo, Mojave, Lakota, Eskimo, Yuma, Klamath, Crow, and Blackfoot) commonly accept alternative gender roles involving cross-gender or same-sex behavior, including same-sex marriages.