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In Support of Affection and Love:
Marrying Someone Gay or Lesbian
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Leslie Westbrook
on July 20, 2003
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
The couple were in their early thirties. They sat holding hands. One woman
was wearing jeans and a denim jacket. Her cropped blonde hair feathered softly
around a petite heart-shaped face unadorned by cosmetics. There was a
no-nonsense appearance about the way she carried herself. She was from the
working class, from Irish South Boston. Her partner, who had medium length
dark hair, was in a traditional summer dress. Pastel hues captured and
emphasized her gentle appearance. Both women’s quiet reserve permeated the
room. While they both seemed shy, the woman in the jeans took the lead. First,
she formally thanked me for meeting with them and then she told me that she
and her partner wanted a wedding ceremony. As I asked them questions, they
each, in their own very different ways, spoke of how much they loved one
another and wanted to be with each other. They spoke of a felt need to tell
the world of their love. The woman in the jeans spoke the most. Her speech was
intense, direct. She looked me straight in the eyes as she spoke. I liked her.
I liked her partner. I liked the way these two women were with each other. I
said I certainly would perform the ceremony they requested.
It was September of 1973. I had just begun my first month as Assistant
Minister at Arlington Street Church, an inner city, social action-oriented
church in Boston, Massachusetts. I was twenty seven, naive, idealistic,
hopeful, a woman in what was still a man’s world, trying to learn how to be a
minister. The Senior Minister with whom I worked, Dr. Mwalimu Imara, was
hardly your traditional parish minister. An African American man, originally
African Methodist Episcopal and Canadian, he had turned to Unitarian
Universalism during his adult years. These were the Black Power years, when
African Americans were speaking openly of the prejudice and discrimination
that dominated their lives. I had been drawn to the church because of what
Mwalimu preached....respect and equality for all people. Coming from a poor
Southern background, there was resonance for me when I heard his sermons.
I had never performed a single wedding, nor taken a course in theological
school about how to develop a wedding ceremony for a couple. A child of the
60's, I had few fantasies that heterosexual marriage was ‘made in heaven.’ I
was a product of the women’s liberation movement, and keenly aware of ways
marriage as traditionally defined was oppressive to women. Mwalimu, on the
other hand, was a Black man struggling to survive in a white man’s world. He
was a mixture of extreme liberalism combined with orthodox ideas. Though
approached first to perform the ceremony, he could not bring himself to do it.
He wrote in the church newsletter that very week.
Formal man-woman unions, that is, the basic family structure, provides the
environmental soup for the nurture and socialization of the young. The
continuity of culture, what makes people people, depends on that soup, the
family. The man-woman union is the basic unit of human society–we call it a
family. It is formed through a social ritual called marriage. When I was
called upon yesterday to perform a ‘gay’ wedding....my answer to the inquiring
couple was this, "This religious community, this church, will give formal
blessing and sanction to life commitments called ‘Celebration of Love’ or
‘Celebration of Holy Union.’ However, we reserve the use of the ritual called
‘marriage’ for those unions fundamental to the continuity of that biological
invention known as human culture."
Though articulate about his discomfort with calling a gay wedding ceremony
a marriage, Mwalimu did give me a private tutorial on how to interview a
couple seeking a wedding ceremony. He supported me as I worked with the
couple. I have the hand written notes from that tutorial, and when I read them
again this week in preparation for this morning, I was struck with how much of
what he taught me are still guiding principles when I work with any couple.
I have no idea what Mwalimu’s personal views on Celebrations of Love or Gay
Weddings are today. I imagine he has been on a personal journey, like the rest
of us. I do know that thirty years ago, it never occurred to me to think there
was anything awry when I performed the service. I was in a marriage with a man
who had been divorced and had two children from his previous marriage, so I
knew first hand how difficult maintaining a loving relationship can be. I
wanted to provide whatever support and legitimacy I could to these two women
who wanted to make a public commitment to one another. Arlington Street Church
was a particularly supportive environment for doing what felt ‘right.’
The evening I met with them, I sat in an office with a large portrait of
William Ellery Channing behind my desk. For those of you who are familiar with
Unitarian Universalist history, you will remember Channing as the New England
minister who spoke out against slavery while serving Arlington Street Church,
thereby alienating a large portion of his well off Yankee congregation. It was
Channing who delivered a sermon on the occasion of the ordination of Jared
Sparks here in Maryland at First Church in Baltimore, a sermon that laid out a
Unitarian theology of a unitary, not a trinitary, God. It was Channing who was
the guiding force institutionalizing that liberal Christian theology by
forming the American Unitarian Association. Channing had declared that God was
one, not a trinity, and that all human beings were of one species, as well.
Our modern rendition of Channing’s ideas are that whether you are white or
black, rich or poor, gay or straight or bisexual or transgender, the human
blood and desire that courses through your veins is basically the same. So
thirty years ago, it didn’t seem unusual to me, it seemed as normal as ‘apple
pie,’ that I and the two women sitting with me under Channing’s portrait were
discussing their relationship and their wedding plans.
I realize that the idea of marriage invariably stirs strong emotions in
most of us–no matter whether we are gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender.
This is especially true when we think about marriage for ourselves. We may
have thoughts and feelings about our parents’ marriages, the relationships of
others we have loved, perhaps of our own past marriages and unions. We may
remember painful disappointments, as well as moments of feeling uplifted. Our
emotions may run the entire gamut from desire to disgust, from fear to
longing, from confusion or ambivalence to absolute clarity of feeling. In
The Lesbian Sex Book, Wendy Caster describes some of the reactions that
lesbians may have when they think about marriage.
1. Some couples love the idea and are eager to declare their love to one
another in front of a gathered community.
2. Some despise the very thought of any form of ‘marriage’, as they
associate it with the traditional patriarchal institution of marriage. In
particular, ‘marriage survivors’ may want nothing to do with an institution
which has only brought them pain.
3. Still others may be skeptical, think of marriage as that ‘heterosexual
thing,’ and feel no need until they attend a ceremony. Then they may have any
number of feelings and thoughts about what they might or might not want for
themselves (Pp. 102-103).
Not everyone wants a committed, on-going monogamous relationship. Many
people, however, do. They want an intimate, sexual, companionate relationship
they can count on over the long haul. Such relationships often also contain a
financial arrangement, a plan for parenting, and a division of parenting
responsibilities. As in the heterosexual world, the nature of those
relationships and the details of the sexual, emotional, financial, social and
familial relationships are as varied as are the people who create them.
When a couple comes to me because they want a public celebration of their
love and commitment, I try to help them design a service that will reflect
their understanding of the love and affection they feel for one another. I try
to help them design a service that will express their hopes and promises for
their future together. I try to help them begin to think about and acknowledge
the limits of their relationship, i.e. under what conditions they would leave
the other person. What is it that is critically important to the maintenance
and sustenance of their relationship? What would seriously threaten its
continuance?
The elements of a Celebration of Love or Gay Wedding are usually simple but
full of intense feeling and yearning.
I remember the Opening Words of a Celebration of Love I performed in a
garden in Concord, Massachusetts in May of 1981, a full eight years after the
first Celebration of Love. The words were composed from what the couple told
me and what they wrote about their relationship. Imagine that garden, green in
the New England spring, sprinkled with the bright flowers that come after a
long winter. The wedding was in the backyard of a home in a well-heeled
residential neighborhood. Imagine a clear sky, no traffic noise, a slight
chill in the air. The Opening Words spoke of what the women valued and
cherished, their hopes for the future, their promises to one another. I said
(I use different names here),
"We are here today at Ann and Linda’s home because Ann and Linda love each
other. We have been called together as witnesses to the happiness which they
have found together and to the pledge which they will now make, each to the
other, for the mutual service of their common life.
We rejoice with them that out of all the world they have found each other,
and that they will henceforth find the deeper meaning and richness of life in
sharing with each other.
This ceremony brings with it no guarantee. Ann and Linda must deliberately
intend, in every coming day, to be married to one another, without regard to
the ebb and flow of feelings, without regard to the joys and sorrows of life,
without regard to the gifts and denials of circumstance.
Ann and Linda each comes to this union with a unique background that has
made her who she is. From this they will make their own history, each one
knowledgeable and thankful for what went before in the life of the other."
Like every other wedding at which I have officiated,
--I declared that the purpose of the gathering was to witness the exchange
of marriage vows in which two people would commit themselves to a relationship
of love, caring and -support.
--I told the gathered assembly that we stood with this couple in a profound
moment in time and we were honored to be with them.
-- I declared that the couple pledging themselves to one another needed us,
their family and friends, to recognize, to support, and to celebrate with them
as they began their life together. In fact, I said that the ideals, the
understanding, and the mutual respect which they brought to their relationship
had their roots in the love, friendship, guidance, and shared experience that
we had provided them.
–And I spoke of how each woman came from a different family, with different
cultural and religious values and different life experiences. Their
relationship would be as unique as the two people who formed it.
There would be readings of poetry and prose that expressed Ann and Linda’s
understanding of love and marriage. Then came the most important part of the
ceremony. I asked the couple, "have you come here freely and without
reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?" When they responded
affirmatively, I invited them to exchange their wedding vows. Ann
spontaneously declared her love, with no written text. Linda, being more
organized and formal, vowed her love and commitment with the following words.
She said:
"In admiration and trust, I say these true things to you, Ann. I promise to
share myself gladly with you, wholeheartedly and without reservation, never to
allow any other relation to come before ours. I will seek you out in times of
my need and comfort you in yours. You are my best friend and only lover. I
will love, respect, and care for you through good times and bad, as long as we
both shall live."
The couple exchanged rings, and I declared that they were loving and
committed partners from that day forth. The couple kissed, and the assembly
laughed with pleasure and clapped. All of the elements of an adult love
relationship were incorporated into the ceremony.
As described in The Psychology of Love by Robert J. Sternberg and
Michael L. Barness, an adult love relationship typically includes, to one
degree or another, passion, intimacy, and commitment.
First, PASSION. Strong romantic, physical, and sexual attraction, with the
desire for consummation. These two women were sexual partners. The details of
the ways they expressed their love, affection and sexual desire were known
only to them. We can make no assumptions about the ways any couple–gay,
straight, bisexual or transgender–interact. But these two women were saying in
front of their family and friends that this part of their lives together was
satisfying and they both consented to it.
Second, INTIMACY. Intimacy includes feelings that promote closeness and the
experience of human warmth, a desire to promote the welfare of the other
person, experiencing happiness with and having a high regard for the other,
receiving and giving emotional support, feeling loved and appreciated by the
other, feeling mutually understood and similar to the other in important ways
(Sternberg, p. 142).
Finally, COMMITMENT. Commitment is the decision to do all one can to
maintain the love that one feels for another person, and to maintain the
relationship between them.
I have spoken of two couples who asked me to witness and legitimize their
love relationship. As with most marriages I perform, I have no idea whether
these two couples are still together. I know that at the time they made their
commitments to one another, the women wished their relationships to continue
all the days of their lives.
As in all adult love relationships, there were three things that I wished
for them. This is my favorite wedding benediction. Over the years, I have been
unable to find the source, the author, of these beautiful words. For my own
purposes, I have altered the strictly heterosexual references, so that the
poem refers to all loving couples. I say:
I wish for you now, and in the years ahead:
Love in your lives that make you better people, that continues to give you
joy and zest for living, that provides you with energy to face the
responsibilities and challenges of life.
A sense of home, with whomever you choose to make up you family, a home
that can stand as a symbol of people living together in love, honesty and
equality.
And finally, the capacity to say to those you love, when you come to the
end of your lives, ‘Because you have loved me, my faith in myself has grown;
and because I have seen the good in you, my faith in all humanity has
deepened. Amen.’
Office@CedarLane.org
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