Tomorrow night I am leading a wedding ceremony for a couple. They are bright, energetic, hard working, hilarious and so loving toward each other. They have been together seven years and want to publicly commit their lives to each other, with a community of friends and family encircling them in love.

After the ceremony however, I won’t be filing a marriage license. The State of Arizona will not recognize their joining because this couple is gay. In the ceremony, we acknowledge how “their love is BIGGER than social rules” and hope how someday they will find legal recognition in addition to social recognition of their commitment to each other.

Here is an excerpt from the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in that state. I keep it nearby when I write ceremonies for same-sex couples, to be inspired or to insert pieces of it.

“Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.

It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a ‘civil right.’ Without the right to choose to marry, one is excluded from the full range of human experience.”

I love that phrase, “it (civil marriage) fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven and connection that express our common humanity” because regardless of belief systems, isn’t that something we might all agree we share?

With Love,

Kristine