{"id":2881,"date":"2014-10-20T22:22:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T03:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=2881"},"modified":"2014-10-20T21:23:02","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T02:23:02","slug":"marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/10\/20\/marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Same-sex marriage comes home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Never thought I\u2019d get the chance to perform a same-sex wedding here in Bible Belt, but then things have changed with <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/10\/08\/xkcd-does-dataviz-on-marriage\/\">surprising rapidity<\/a> around here of late. As the Oklahoma Gazette reported just last week:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cover series: Marriage equality part of being a family.  <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/A1Sczit5Bv\">http:\/\/t.co\/A1Sczit5Bv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Oklahoma Gazette (@okgazette) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/okgazette\/status\/522408776708935680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 15, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cover series: Marriage equality was a long road of victories. <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/8XpJgYnfjo\">http:\/\/t.co\/8XpJgYnfjo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Oklahoma Gazette (@okgazette) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/okgazette\/status\/522435485697081344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 15, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cover series: Same-sex opponents have few, if any, options. <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/9oeBVmZeuu\">http:\/\/t.co\/9oeBVmZeuu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Oklahoma Gazette (@okgazette) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/okgazette\/status\/523116477982183424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 17, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>So, <em>this is happening<\/em>, right here and now. Couples who had planned to fly out of state don\u2019t 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\u00a0couples who never seriously had to grapple with the question of marriage are now having to do so for the first time. (Good luck!)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2883\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2883\" style=\"width: 722px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/10\/big-fat-gay-wedding.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2883\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/10\/big-fat-gay-wedding.jpg\" alt=\"Beautiful day for a wedding at the park\" width=\"722\" height=\"580\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/10\/big-fat-gay-wedding.jpg 722w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/10\/big-fat-gay-wedding-300x240.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 722px) 100vw, 722px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2883\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Perfect\u00a0day for a wedding at the park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>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\u2019m not making up hypotheticals here. There are actually people in this\u00a0world 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\u2019m not going to reach for the Islamic State, I\u2019m going to reach for the everyday bigotry that parishioners are spoon-fed from evangelical pulpits on any given Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s enough with the negativity, for now. \u00a0It has been\u00a0just\u00a0under ten years since the overwhelming\u00a0passage of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oklahoma_Question_711\" target=\"_blank\">Oklahoma Question 711<\/a>\u00a0and already that nasty fit of populist\u00a0prejudice has been swept away, with thanks to\u00a0Mary Bishop, Sharon Baldwin, Susan Barton, Gay Phillips, and everyone else who <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Same-sex_marriage_in_Oklahoma#Bishop_v._United_States\" target=\"_blank\">fought the law<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/newsok.com\/same-sex-marriage-now-legal-in-oklahoma\/article\/5349007\" target=\"_blank\">won<\/a>. The wedding was beautiful, the weather accommodating, and\u00a0both families turned out in\u00a0good numbers,\u00a0which I&#8217;m told is not always the norm for a big gay wedding. I&#8217;m so proud to be part of an extended family that supports each other like that, and I&#8217;m filled with optimism for the future.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Never thought I\u2019d get the chance to perform a same-sex wedding here in Bible Belt, but then things have changed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oklahoma","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}