Never thought I’d get the chance to perform a same-sex wedding here in Bible Belt, but then things have changed with surprising rapidity around here of late. As the Oklahoma Gazette reported just last week:
Cover series: Marriage equality part of being a family. http://t.co/A1Sczit5Bv
— Oklahoma Gazette (@okgazette) October 15, 2014
Cover series: Marriage equality was a long road of victories. http://t.co/8XpJgYnfjo
— Oklahoma Gazette (@okgazette) October 15, 2014
Cover series: Same-sex opponents have few, if any, options. http://t.co/9oeBVmZeuu
— Oklahoma Gazette (@okgazette) October 17, 2014
So, this is happening, right here and now. Couples who had planned to fly out of state don’t have to do so now. Couples who got married in a private ceremony two decades ago finally get the chance to have all the various legal benefits of legal recognition. Young couples who never seriously had to grapple with the question of marriage are now having to do so for the first time. (Good luck!)
There are ripple effects felt beyond the effected couples, as well. Devout Southern Baptists, for example, have to decide whether to alienate kinfolk and in-laws by pointedly abstaining from attending same-sex wedding ceremonies. Yes, this really does happen. No, I’m not making up hypotheticals here. There are actually people in this world for who take their faith-based beliefs seriously enough to alienate family members by boycotting weddings, though not quite seriously enough to diligently examine whether said beliefs are really true. The next time someone asks me why critically examining our spiritual beliefs really matters, I’m not going to reach for the Islamic State, I’m going to reach for the everyday bigotry that parishioners are spoon-fed from evangelical pulpits on any given Sunday.
That’s enough with the negativity, for now. It has been just under ten years since the overwhelming passage of Oklahoma Question 711 and already that nasty fit of populist prejudice has been swept away, with thanks to Mary Bishop, Sharon Baldwin, Susan Barton, Gay Phillips, and everyone else who fought the law and won. The wedding was beautiful, the weather accommodating, and both families turned out in good numbers, which I’m told is not always the norm for a big gay wedding. I’m so proud to be part of an extended family that supports each other like that, and I’m filled with optimism for the future.
