I’m single, so for me the battle for same-sex marriage has been moral, not personal. And if I’m being honest, I joined the battle relatively late in the game.
Just a decade ago, the possibility that mainstream America would embrace same-sex partners in the context of traditional couple-on-top-of-the-cake marriage seemed like fantasy. Unlike my friend, Equality Florida executive director Nadine Smith, my beliefs are too often tempered by practicality. Back then I believed the best-case strategy was to recast marriage as a spiritual ceremony, allowing religions and churches to limit access based on their beliefs, but then tie all legal rights and privileges of marriage to a secular civil union open to all committed couples.
Now that seven states, two federal circuit courts, the President of the United States and a majority of our fellow citizens support marriage equality, my advocacy is hardly revolutionary. In fact, I comprehended the true significance of marriage rights only after officiating at the recent wedding of my friends Greg and Matt in New York City.
A brief aside: Marriage has been legal in New York since last summer. But unlike Florida, where a Notary Public can officiate at weddings, the State of New York requires further credentials. I obtained them by registering online as a minister of the Universal Life Church, whose tenets are simply to speak truth and act with kindness.
Greg is a writer, director and comedian who honed his craft at Pleasure Island’s Comedy Warehouse. He has the looks and personality of a game-show host, and the organizational skills of a wedding planner. Matt is an award-winning ceramic sculptor and teacher who has lived most of his adult life in New York City. His artist’s loft in the Bronx is a magical place filled with complex and challenging pieces in various stages of completion.
The couple was introduced 14 years ago by Matt’s brother, a respected Central Florida actor. Greg disrupted a successful career so that they could be together. He has reestablished himself in New York, and now directs shows for Disney, the Tribeca Film Festival and his own comedy troupe.
Two years ago the couple bought a spacious apartment in a diverse Harlem neighborhood they’ve grown to love. Late last year they learned Matt has cancer.
Matt caught it early, and he’s under the care of the best physicians in the world at Sloan Kettering. The prognosis is entirely positive. So he and Greg decided that when they look back at 2012 they don’t want to recall chemotherapy and surgery. They want to remember it as the year they got married.
I was honored when they asked me to officiate and a little skittish. The ceremony was at a spacious Riverside Drive penthouse overlooking the Hudson River. Close to 100 in attendance included family and friends who’d flown in from Wisconsin, Tennessee and Florida, and numerous artists and theater professionals a tough crowd, to my mind.
But when Greg and Matt took their places beside me, all we could see were beaming faces filled with affection. My narcissistic nervousness evaporated.
The couple had asked me to share something to relax and personalize the ceremony. I noted that they were uniquely qualified for relationship success. Matt is a genius with clay; a difficult medium that requires adaptability and patience. And Greg is a master of improvisational comedy, which requires that you say “yes’ to whatever your partners throw at you and then build on it.
I can’t think of anything more important to a relationship than the willingness to say “yes,” I said.
But Matt and Greg stole the show with vows that were breathtaking in their sincerity and emotional transparency.
In 14 years together, I haven’t once felt like I was alone, Greg said, looking at Matt and valiantly but unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears. I didn’t know it was possible to trust someone so completely.
When you were getting ready to move to New York I fantasized about what it would be like together, Matt said. It’s been so much better than that, and in ways I never could have imagined.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It is that image and feeling of total love and support that remains with me. I hope it will always be accessible to Greg and Matt.
Love is the best of us, and commitment is the air on which it floats. Marriage is an acknowledgement and celebration of both. A constipated world view that would deny that to anyone is amoral and inhumane.
Interestingly, most of the people in attendance at Greg and Matt’s wedding were straight and married. It would never have occurred to them that what they witnessed that day diminished their relationships in any way.
For some, love is fragile and must be protected. For others, like those at Greg and Matt’s wedding, it is powerful and abundant; to be shared and encouraged.
