Dear Answer Lady,
At my wedding [Ed. Note: Damn, it is wedding season up in this advice column!] in fast-approaching 2010 I would like to somehow recognize those in the audience who were or are unable to marry because they are gay. A wedding ceremony inherently contains a wealth of self-aggrandizing pats-on-the-back, but I feel like it's doubly in-your-face-haha-we-are-getting-married for those who can't do the same. Our audience will have both family and friends in those shoes, spanning the Greatest Generation to Gen X. What is a tasteful way to incorporate this sentiment into our all-too-hetero ceremony?
Mr. Conflicted Vows-Taker
p.s. The ceremony is not in a religious venue, obvs.
p.p.s. I don't mean recognize like "Hey, Anne, she's out there and cannot..." but more generally. Also obvs.
Dear Conflicted,
Skip it. A wedding ceremony is going to be in-your-face-haha-we-are-getting-married no matter how many caveats about "sorry we're getting married when gays can't or couldn't get married too" you throw in there. And actually, it seems to me that it would be nearly impossible to express this sentiment in front of the "audience" — it might behoove you to start thinking of them as "guests"! — without seeming like you are patting yourselves on your respective backs even harder. You know? A) for getting married and B) for being good people who care about evil and social injustice.
I think, Conflicted, that your vows are not the time to grandstand about your stance on gay marriage, or Darfur or universal healthcare or freeing Mumia*. Your vows are, for better or worse, only about the two of you. (Vow joke!) If you do say something, even if you don't single out Anne or whoever, Anne or whoever is going to feel singled out, possibly in more ways than one. Instead, talk to these friends and family members privately about your feelings, if you think they might not know where you stand, but save the speeches for a marriage equality rally. Which, you are probably going to one of those every weekend, right?
*this joke seems really dated but, you know, he is still in jail!
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Previously: When Two Men Fall In Love
Marry Arnie instead.
Or pour a 40 of Champale on the altar.
* You could use "clemency for Tookie" as a dated joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Williams
as a homosexual, i am going to consider your wedding tacky and offensive no matter what, despite all conciliatory bromides. when gay marriage is legal, i will consider gay weddings tacky, offensive, and pathetic. i will also be offended if you don't invite me.
i will give a really cheapo present.
live with it!
I think homosexual weddings will be extra tacky. Even as a homosexual, I feel gross about watching two dudes slow-dance.
How interesting! Do you mean it's a gross thing to see in general, or it's a gross thing to watch as, like, part of an event, or what?
I am in the same boat. As a geigh, I think it would be so...cheesy; saying vows, making a big show about wanting to bang this one person 'forever.'
I kinda hate tradition, though (like your slow dancing) so maybe I'd just go to the courthouse and have a cookout after.
When is this column going to have its day where someone writes in about being sexually abused and Emily can't be flippant anymore and comes to appreciate that, like, these are real people out there who need help and this is A Hard Job?
It happened on Clarissa Explains It All, so it must happen here.
The Very Special Episode was the one about Twitter, I thought: http://www.theawl.com/2009/04/social-as-however-do-you-integrate-terrible-events-with-your-online-world
There is not a blessed thing wrong with this column, meaning both the one we are gathered here to read today and in general.
Actually, you can acknowledge me at your wedding by websurfing right to my Amazon Wish List and buying me something. I will email you the link upon receipt of your wedding invitation.
"Weddings will be tacky or will not be at all."
Just propose a toast at somepoint and say something like "and here's to all those loving couples whose unions are not legally recognized throughout the United States: may they too be allowed to march down the aisle soon!"
I think that's a nice tribute without being a downer for the gays or a buzz kill of other guests.
What does everyone else think?
Save it for when you're really drunk at the reception. It'll come off as twice as awkward.
Especially when you invite all your gay guests back to your hotel room so they won't feel left out.
I was at a Catholic wedding a couple years ago where the priest asked everyone in the church to bow their heads and pray that all loving couples who so wish be able to marry soon. It was actually pretty affecting. (He's probably since been excommunicated.)
Various sets do various things. Conduct your wedding as you see fit.
Personally I would be disgusted to encounter this where I was a guest.
Methinks a a big ego is on the loose. With a captive audience you want to inform them of your moral superiority.
Actually such behavior is not rare these days. It is almost routine among actors and other entertainers. Perhaps that has influenced you.
Why not also be nude to show solidarity with nudists? They are certainly a minority whose behavior and activities are restricted.
They could invite Sacheen Littlefeather to officiate.
I would suggest you may be uncomfortable with this day being all about YOU, but I also get a riding-the-high-horse vibe from this letter, so I doubt that's the case.
If you were having a baby, you wouldn't go around apologizing to every barren couple you know, would you?
However, if you do decide to risk the discomfort of any of your quests, please do remember to write to them all, if you ever get divorced, to tell them how lucky they have it. Because you are personally responsible for the entire institution of marriage, apparently.
Right between the vows and the kiss, show a little gay porn. It will wake everyone up.
fucking patronizing, i think
I plan on shunting fucking Corinthians and having a reading from the Aristophanes creation myth out of Plato's symposium. It's understated, yet poignant; the opening credits of Hedwig were based on it.
Basically, in the beginning, there were three kinds of humans, with two heads, eight limbs, one heart: all male, all female, and androgynous. They angered the gods, and Zeus cut them in half. The male-males and female-females are gay; the androgynous ones are straight. They spend their lives seeking out their original other halves: their soulmates.
"And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of men or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another.
...I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree must in present circumstances be the nearest approach to such a union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love."
Ask one of your lispier friends to read. Or one of your swishier friends to ush. Not because he's gay, but because he's your friend and fuck what Great-Uncle Jed Boyd thinks.
And get your officiating Methodist to leave out the line about "God made man and woman for one another." It won't be lost on the religious-raised gays in the audience.
These things worked for us. Anything else might be a little ... awkward.