We Are Married - Wedding Reflections Pt 2

The reaction to my post yesterday-  and a link to it that I put on Facebook - about our wedding in Washington, D.C., has been amazing and overwhelmingly supportive.  I've literally heard from people I haven't heard from in a long time.   My husband has had a similar experience with his clients and Facebook friends.  We are both looking forward to the reception for family and friends this summer when we will get to celebrate with those unable to be with us in Washington, D.C.

I've been asked repeatedly whether or not I/we feel any different.  The simple answer is "Not really."  We have been together for nearly six years and have lived together for a little over five years.  Our day to day routines will change very little in reality.  But on a different level, things have changed completely.  The government of the United States of America and its agencies recognize us as married spouses and we now are entitled to all the federal benefits that go along with such recognition.  Moreover, while Virginia ay still refuse to recognize the legal status of our relationship, our friends and neighbors and many others now see us as lawfully married.  It is a huge difference:

Click image to enlarge

The other thing that is different is that when we were married yesterday, I had no concerns about conforming to societal expectations.  Thankfully, I have put concerns for what others will think behind me.  Indeed, one could argue that by getting married we both ignored traditional societal expectations - or at least those that were the norm when I married my former wife.

Those many years ago when I married my former wife - who I truly hope has found happiness - I was deep in denial to myself and everyone else as to who I really was and who I was attracted to and likely to fall in love with.   With homosexuality literally classified as a form of mental illness until my last year of college, being gay was just something too horrible to contemplate.  Particularly when you added in my Roman Catholic upbringing.  The result? An endless struggle to be "what was expected" and to "change myself."  It did not work in the long run.  Perhaps my first marriage was fated to happen since three wonderful children were the outcome.  Yet I hurt my former wife and suffered silently for decades with self-loathing and self-hate because I could not "change" as the Church and the ex-gay ministries promised could be the case.

Thankfully, I am long past where I was when I first started this blog.  Readers from those early years will likely recall some of the dark posts - and even the suicide attempts.  Amazingly, I have now achieved the image of what I longed for when I first began the coming out process: I am in a committed, legally recognized relationship with a wonderful man who I love deeply and, mercifully, I am on good terms with my three children who we referenced in our wedding ceremony and vowed to embrace as our common children.

My message to others making the journey I made is to think positive.  What you seek is possible.  As for the ex-gay quacks and charlatans, I hold them in utter contempt.  For the love of money and a psychological sickness they continue to ruin the lives of so many, including straight spouses who they apparently view as acceptable collateral damage.  We all need to live our lives as we are and as the Creator made us to be.

The husband, his father and me

We Are Married - Wedding Reflections Pt. 1

This weekend was a bit of a whirlwind.  We drove to Washington, D.C., yesterday morning - we did not actually arrive until 1:30PM due to horrific traffic, an everyday Washington phenomenon - and settled into out hotel before going out for a light lunch at the Daily Grill on Connecticut Avenue.   The real partying, however, began later at Oceanaire on F Street east of the White House.  We purposely kept the group small and intimate knowing that a much larger reception would take place later in the year when my children can attend. The company was great and the dinner over the top.  My father-in-law had a great time as did the rest of us.  A few of us had a "nightcap" at our hotel afterwards before turning in.

Dinner at Oceanaire

The main event, of course, was today at the Kennedy Center where a District of Columbia marriage commissioner married us.  My father-in-law participated in the ceremony.  We wrote the ceremony based on the theme in notes from the wedding of friends who likewise married later in life and who, like me have children.  The marriage commissioner added some nice flourishes and overall, it was moving and emotional.  The irony is that in many of the pictures you can see Virginia - where we still cannot legally marry - in the background across the Potomac.

 

Following the ceremony, we had a great time at the Terrace Restaurant on the top level of the Kennedy Center which has an amazing view on two sides.  All in all, it was a wonderful and needless to say memorable weekend.  As for a honeymoon, in September we are flying to Venice and taking a seven day cruise of the Greek Islands.

While in the restaurant, we had many of the staff and numerous other dinners give us words of congratulations.  The times are changing and religious based discrimination needs to end now.

Wedding Weekend in Washington, D.C.

Posting will be reduced this weekend.  Tomorrow morning Barry and I are headed to Washington, D.C., for our wedding.   It's an event that not too many years ago neither of us would ever have dreamed would be possible.  For me, after a coming out process that at times verged on a living Hell, its the culmination of the image in my mind of what I sought at the end of the journey: a legally recognized, committed relationship to a wonderful man.  All the plans are in place and family members who cannot attend will be staying at the house and other family members will be dog sitting the "furry children" as Barry calls the two Chihuahuas.

A wedding commissioner for the District of Columbia will be officiating the ceremony,but Barry's dad - a retired Southern Baptist pastor - will be participating in the ceremony.  The actual ceremony will be conducted on the southeast corner of the top terrace of the John F. Kennedy Center for the performing Arts (pictured above).  With a forecast of good weather, the image below shows the view that will be the back drop for the ceremony (in the background is Virginia where our marriage still will not be recognized).

 Following the ceremony, we will dine in the Terrace Restaurant on the top level of the complex which is pictured below.

 

The group in Washington will be small and intimate and later in the year when my oldest daughter and my grandson have returned from Washington State we will have the first of several receptions for family and friends.  Tonight we had dinner at the Hampton Yacht Club where we received congratulations and hugs from other members and the staff.  Living one's life openly and honestly does change hearts and minds.  We will take plenty of photos and there will be some updates as the weekend progresses.

Main floor atrium - Kennedy Center

For those who would like to do something in honor of our wedding, we will be setting up a page at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation where tax deductible donations can be made to the Hamar/HRBOR Scholarship that the Foundation manages for HRBOR.  Details will follow.

Justice Ginsburg To Officiate At Same-Sex Wedding

Expect the far right and the Christofascists to foam at the mouth at this news: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will become the first Supreme Court justice to officiate at a same-sex marriage today. Kudos for Ginsburg who truly understands that religious based bigotry of all kinds - be it anti-gay or anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim - has no place in the nation's civil laws.  It is always ironic to me that those on the far right who scream the loudest about religious liberty are always the ones leading the charge to deprive others of their Constitutional right to freedom of  - and from - religion.   As always, the hypocrisy is mind numbing.  Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement on the nuptials that Ginsburg will preside over:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will become the first Supreme Court justice to officiate at a same-sex marriage on Saturday. The 80-year old jurist who is considered the head of the progressive wing of the Court will marry Michael M. Kaiser and John Roberts (ironically, no relation to the Chief Justice). Roberts is an economist, and Kaiser is the president of Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where the ceremony will be held.

Calling it a “gala wedding” that “brings together the nation’s highest court and the capital’s high society,” the Washington Post reports the wedding “will mark a new milepost in recognition of same-sex unions.”

Ginsburg seemed excited during a recent interview about being the first member of the court to conduct such a ceremony and said it was only a logical next step.

“I think it will be one more statement that people who love each other and want to live together should be able to enjoy the blessings and the strife in the marriage relationship,” Ginsburg said.

She added: “It won’t be long before there will be another” performed by a justice. Indeed, she has another planned for September.

Ginsburg and Kaiser are close friends. She is perhaps the Supreme Court’s most ardent supporter of the fine arts, especially opera. Kaiser has been at the helm of the Kennedy Center since 2001 and is an internationally recognized expert in arts management and one of Washington’s most civic influential leaders.

“I can’t imagine someone I’d rather be married by” than Ginsburg, Kaiser said in an interview.