On June 24, 2011, New York approved the right of gay couples to legally marry, joining five other States (and Washington, D.C.). Couples will be able to marry starting July 25, 2011.
On a personal level, I am most gratified. I wrote my law school thesis in 1992 on the injustice and inequality gay couples had to endure simply because they could not marry. No matter the rights and privileges of civil unions, being excluded from the marriage club is discrimination no different from the miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage the United States Supreme Court struck down in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia. Equal but separate is still separate.
I am sure there are those of you who believe that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman. I absolutely respect your opinion and we can agree to disagree. However, I do hope that you will respect the legal, equal right in New York now bestowed on gay couples. And access is the heart of this post.
Much has been written about what it means to now have gay marriage in New York, including this really interesting Op-Ed piece by Ross Douthat in the New York Times. What gay marriage ultimately resembles – conservative notions of monogamy and fidelity, openness or something in between is what it will be in our culture as will the transformation gay marriage may or may not bring to our notions of marriage – gay or not. Lives transpire and evolve and we are all informed along the way.
Gay weddings, however, are the province of creative business. What you as artists will or will not do to bring gay marriage into its own light is a responsibility not to be underestimated or ignored. Yes, gay weddings will be good for business. But this goes far beyond business and is a rare moment when great business can shape how we choose to live in society. Art can expand another’s ability to see differently, to value beauty as the viewer may never have conceived it, to move someone past their own preconceptions, even to reconstitute a person’s own ideas of morality.
If we can all be stirred by Kate and William, then so too can we be stirred by Kate and Jane. If, however, we are stirred without context, tradition and revelation, then we will be left only with us versus them no matter what the law says. The goal has to be to have the tears of joy flowing, audible gasps and “what a great party” no matter who stands at the altar. A task singularly assigned to creative business. In doing so, you, your art and your creative business will have a hand in moving people beyond tolerance to actual acceptance and respect. And, in that moment, you will set the stage for all that is possible. My prayer is that you embrace the responsibility of this opportunity as much as you endeavor to make a profit from it.
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Sean, great post as always. Having planned hundreds of gay weddings, I believe the ceremony is the most important part, for the very reason you described because they involve “moving people beyond tolerance to actual acceptance and respect.” The tears of joy are the best part, and they are what creates change – because the (mostly straight) guests go home and they tell their neighbors and co-workers and friends what an amazing wedding they just went to…and it just happened to have two brides (or two grooms). And those stories are what change public policy.
Working with same-sex couples is great responsibility, because they do not take their marriage for granted. And nor will they take you for granted (usually). They fought for the right, and that energy of jubilation and triumph and “FINALLY!” is in the room on the wedding day. Of course gay weddings are good for business, but more importantly, they are good for society.
As a gay man legally married in Canada for the past eight years, I can happily say that gay marriage did not erode the very fabric of society when it started passing here, province by province—and eventually, the whole country—back in 2003. No one started marrying their pets. Divorce rates didn’t sky-rocket. Polygamy did not become the new normal.
When we started planning our wedding, it was months before the laws started changing. Still, we were very clear with everyone that this was, in fact, going to be a wedding, just like all the weddings we had been to for our siblings, cousins, co-workers and friends. Sure, we threw in a little gay “flare” to let people know it was something different (synchronized swimmers performed in the pool during the cocktail hour) and we chose not to do a wedding cake or first dance, but still, it was a wedding through and through. In fact many said it was one of the best weddings they have ever been to, and still talk about it to this day.
Part of what made it so, as you point out Sean, is that everyone we dealt with treated our event with the respect and care it deserved: the caterer, the DJ, the tent people, etc. The man who officiated our wedding cried throughout the ceremony because it was the first legal gay marriage he had conducted and he was, clearly, very moved by the momentous occasion. Even my mom—who asked early on what she was “supposed to call this thing when her friends asked about it” (“You say your son’s getting married, Mom.”)—came fully and joyfully around and transformed into the consummate mother of the bride/groom/bride-groom/whatever you want to call it. It is, as you point out Sean, a great responsibility, but also one that can and should be filled with joy as you help others achieve the same on what is supposed to be (and was for us) the happiest day of their lives.