First Parish Unitarian UniversalistThe First Anniversary of Equal Marriage in Massachusetts
A Lay-led Service
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
May 15, 2005
Reflections by Laura and Jana, Poem by Lydia (age 13)
Laura's:
We are here today to honor and celebrate the one year anniversary of Same Sex Marriage in Massachusetts and to recognize that one group’s victory and success hopefully opens the door for all who are feeling oppressed or not honored. Oppression is universal. Inclusion and equity for all is our mission together. Our hope is that the seeds that we plant will fertilize the soil way beyond our own domain.
The temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers. Bashu
When we ring our bell on Sunday morning it symbolizes our unity for social justice for all and it makes me proud to be a member at First Parish. I am also here today more specifically to thank you all for the last few years. This congregation has embraced and welcomed my family. We have found a home here, at First Parish. Three years ago we all began a journey together. We explored the meaning of becoming a Welcoming Congregation. Defining this concept and then specifically laying out the steps, to become a welcoming congregation. Members worked diligently to sustain an open dialogue together. It was sincere and difficult at times. It was a long heartfelt journey. For myself it was very emotional and at times most difficult. We all shared our beliefs, it was honest, unwavering. We went down many roads, had manydiscussions and at the end joined together. As a consequence, I felt we all grew together and got to know each other in a more profound way. Wethen voted to officially become a welcoming congregation. I recognize in so many ways how welcoming we already were, these steps consolidated our beliefs.
Jana and I were married a month later by Diane our minister at First Parish. We have felt married for many years. Committed to our relationship, to grow, to love, to struggle through the hard times, to celebrate the joys, to share the sorrows. We were given the opportunity to honor our commitment in a way I never imagined would be possible and in a place that had so much meaning for both of us.
Jana and I are very private people. We didn’t share our ceremony with all of you and I am here today to say thank you and to tell you how grateful we are for the privilege of being married in this sanctuary with all it represents.
We have been a couple for 28 years. We met when we were babies. I do believe we are soul mates and that we were destined to be together. When our paths crossed I knew inside it was meant to be. I have been so fortunate to have my best friend and partner by my side to encourage me, to believe in me, to pick me up when I fall down. To always and unconditionally feel the love of another human being, to allow me to experience a deep love with such gentleness and kindness has been a gift,
And I thank you Jana.
We were together for 15 years when we adopted our daughter Lydia. She was also our destiny. Jana’s determination and unwavering belief that we could become a family sustained us through some very dark times. Sharing our love with Lydia and becoming a family has made me believe in miracles. We were both able to legally adopt Lydia. It was such a joyful moment for us. Exercising our right to adopt as a family and exercising our right to marry has changed me. It has made me feel that anything is possible in life. Dreams do come true, hope, resilience and faith can guide our lives and transform our future together. The importance of these moments and events echo far beyond the moment; into the past for those who suffered and were oppressed and who fought for our rights and into the future to keep the doors open for others. We have come so far and yet have far to go. We share our journey with all of you. The commitment we have all made together gives us hope and gratitude.
We share the kind of love where nothing is impossible, we join hands with all of you.
Whatever you can do, or dream
You can begin it
Boldness has genius, power
and magic in it.
Thank you for keeping the dream alive.
Jana's:
When the fight for gay marriage started, I listened, but I thought I am already married. I didn't feel the need to define my marriage by common standards. I was not looking for permission. It was as if the decision of the courts would effect our relationship, that one day we would exist and the next we would not. The reality was that we existed, and that this decision would not and could not change that fact.
Did you know that you can get married on death row, murderers, rapist, child abusers, can all get married, only gay people are denied this right, We are the only ones.
Then on November 18 the law was passed. I was very excited by this monumental moment, but I was not sure this was for us. If we did get married we would not call it marriage. We needed a new name for our union, something that we created something that symbolized who we were....... but we could not think of one. The term Marriage seemed to be right, the universal symbol of togetherness, the bond of two people facing life’s struggles and joys together, it had the most power.
Still I was not sure I wanted to give in, we were already married, why do we need to be remarried because now they have decided that our relationship does exist, but didn’t before. I could not move past my anger.
Laura and I talked a great deal about marriage. She let me be angry, she let me talk, she gave her opinions, but did not negate mine. I knew she really wanted to get married, so I continued to listen.
Then I thought okay we will do it for legal reasons, to protect each other and our daughter legally. That’s it, that’s the only reason. We started meeting with Diane to talk about the ceremony. Diane questioned us about what type of ceremony we wanted, would we say vows, have music, who would come, would there be readings? Diane’s questions made me think about this marriage ceremony in a different way, a much more personal way. We started planning, we picked a date, June 13th and then we ordered flowers, bought clothes, invited a small group of friends. Laura chose the music, I practiced a surprise song to sing for Laura and of course I started to write my vows. The process of planning for our wedding changed my feelings, I began to feel how important this really was for us. I finally realized that I was doing this for myself, my partner and our daughter. That this was a celebration of our commitment, a reaffirmation of us as a couple and as a family. Of course I feel and understand how huge this is, for us to be the only state to honor same sex relationships. I understand the universal implications before us, but I needed to do this because it was right for us as a couple and a family.
Iwanted to share my vows with you to express my feelings for Laura and to share a part of our wedding day:
Laura, we have been together on so many journeys, loving and supporting each other as we go. I cannot imagine my life without you. My love for you grows with us: I love you for so many reasons: I love you for standing by me, supporting me and pushing me along on our journey to become a family. For helping me to fulfill that dream, through so many years, so many disappointments, until finally one day half way around the world, Lydia was laid in my arms and we became 3.
I love you for your compassion, your sensitivity, your generosity, your intelligence, your morality and your words of wisdom. You are my friend, my partner, my lover.
We have been so fortunate to have found each other, to have shared what we have shared, and I look forward to the future and the years yet to live as a couple and a family. I love you Laura
Wedding Day by Lydia
Blue skies
White clouds
Rainbow flag
fluttering in the breeze
Smiles, love, and friendship
Two special lovers
Finally united
Legally
One Minister
Two women
And many close friends
All add up to love
The vows
The Kiss
Legally married
Forever
Reflection by Kerstin
By the power vested in me by the commonwealth of Massachusetts, I hereby pronounce you partners in life, legally married in Massachusetts.
I never thought that I’d ever hear those words spoken. But on June 13, 2004, a beautiful sunny day, in the Arboretum, Judy and I were married.
Marriage, to us was really just a formality. We had been together for nearly eight years and were already in a “committed” relationship. We were already as married as we were going to get, we thought.
We lived together, shared a home, mortgage payments, and joint bank accounts. We did the laundry, washed the dishes, walked the dog, and fed the cat. All before the state of Massachusetts deemed us worthy of marriage.
In the months that led up to May 17 th, we participated in rallies outside the State House,
We made calls to our legislators, urged our family members and friends to speak out, and contributed financially to both the Human Rights Campaign and the Freedom to Marry Coalition. We rode the rollercoaster thatwas the constitutional convention, not once, but twice.
It was an emotional time.
On May 17 th, we just happened to be in Provincetown, vacationing and decided that we, along with dozen’s of other couples would file for our marriage license. Our original plan was to file at Canton Town Hall, but we were swept away in all the excitement in Provincetown.
It is hard to describe that day…..so much support, all of the media coverage, the excitement and anticipation.
When we walked out of the Provincetown town Hall, onlookers threw bird seed, we were handed a slice of wedding cake and drew thunderous applause from the crowd. A makeshift wedding reception in progress.
It truly was a day we will never forget.
Then came the wedding plans, negotiating who, if anyone, to invite. Judy, being more private than I am, could not bear to share such an intimate experience with anyone, so we decided that we would have a private ceremony in the Arboretum, a place where we had walked almost every day when we lived in JP and which was a huge part of the early years of our relationship.
Who would marry us? Neither Judy nor I had attended a church regularly for many years and we came from different religious backgrounds. We searched for the right person to perform our ceremony, and after much discussion we chose Naomi Raiselle, the wife of a friend, who had only performed 20 weddings in her time as an officiant. We were her first same-sex ceremony. She met with us on several occasions. She wanted to make sure that we were the real deal, and not just jumping on the wave of excitement that this newfound freedom created. After a couple of sessions with her, we set the date.
It was a wondrous day. There, by the rose garden and beautiful landscape, we stood barefoot in the warming sun and made our vows.
I will read to you, the Blessing that Naomi wrote for us:
May this day shine eternally in your lives,
May it add brilliance to your every achievement and cast healing light over any misfortune
May you care for one another in times of sadness
May you bring laughter and cheer to each other’s days
May you delight in each other’s enthusiasms
May all that is virtuous, beautiful and honest abide with you always
And may you always see the light of love and forgiveness in each other’s eyes.
The ceremony, itself, was a formality, but we were struck by the power of our emotions.
What a difference it made to say our vows formally, to have the loving witness of Naomi and to know that our commitment would be legally recognized by our state.
Life has felt a little different from that day forward. It was a big deal. We were renewed.
We were more gentle, kinder and more understanding…..this did not feel like a formality, after all.
Yes, we had already committed to each other, long ago, but this solidified our commitment and renewed our relationship. We now had the commitment of the State of Massachusetts to recognize us as a couple, as we had already committed to each other.
It has been an amazing year for us. Especially the past eight months spent with the community here at First Parish. We have never felt so Welcomed, anywhere, by this many people.
Our journey doesn’t end here. Unfortunately, in a few short months, another constitutional convention will be upon us. Another rollercoaster of emotions. We will continue to fight for the right to be recognized as equals in the eyes of our government.
But this time I expect it will feel different. It is an amazing feeling to know that we are surrounded in our community by the gift of our fellowship here at First Parish. We feel stronger, more powerful, knowing that with your support, we can get through this.
The love and support of this community and the love we have for each other will not change, no matter the decision, but we will continue to strive for justice.
Reflections by Geoff and Brian
Geoff’s Words:
Thank you for the honor of being able to be here today to share some thoughts with you. For those of us, who prior to this time only imagined what it might be like to have the legal right to marry, this is an incredibly special time, and one that I never imagined that I would experience. But the path to this day has been an interesting one for me, as one who came into this world as a gay human being. For me, being gay simply reflects a dimension of who I am, and it has been this way since I was born. My gayness is no more a choice than the color of my skin or my eyes. It is no more a choice than the place of my birth order in my family. It simply is. I can say that I am very grateful for this dimension of my life. But this was not always the case.
Sometimes life has a way of showing us the gift of a full circle. You all know about full circles. It’s like the situation where a person attends a certain school, let’s say Canton High School, then graduates and years later comes back to Canton High School as a teacher or principal. The story that I would like to share with you today reflects one of those full circles.
I was raised in Canton, the fourth child of a family of six kids. I went to the Hemenway grade school (which is now housing for senior citizens) and attended Canton Junior High. At the time, my family attended St. John’s Church down the road because we were a Catholic family. I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout in Canton, an altar boy at church and I was a member of the town’s swimming team. It all sounds pretty okay so far, and it actually was okay. But somewhere around the fourth or fifth grade something began to change. I began to realize that I was different from the other kids around me. In the fifth grade, I was placed into special education classes for speech pathology. I wasn’t sure why every Thursday afternoon, I had to leave my classmates and go to an office in another part of the school where a speech therapist worked with me. This was confusing to me because I thought that I spoke just fine. My parents never told me that my speech was in anyway problematic. When I asked the speech therapist why I had to come to the sessions, all she would tell me was that my teachers believed that I would benefit by these extra classes. This went on for a year. And on the last day of special education classes, she told me the truth. “Your teachers” she told me, “believe that you speak too effeminately and my job was to help you correct that fault in your speech.” I was crestfallen, and was too embarrassed to talk with anyone about what she told me. Suddenly, I was sharply aware that something was not right.
As I got into the sixth and seventh grades, my inclinations as a gay kid began to awaken more clearly. And I started to hear some pretty clear messages from my Boy Scout leaders, my parish priest and others about homosexuality, and these messages were anything but positive. I realized that I was what they were referring to as a ‘homosexual.’ The messages told me that homosexuals were sick (and at that time were included in the diagnostic labels for mental illness which has now changed), that homosexuals were destined to spend eternity in hell for their mortal sins against nature, and that such behavior was also illegal, and that homosexuals could be jailed for acting on their natural inclinations. To add to this list of negatives, a lot of kids around me began telling jokes about what they called “faggots,” and how they would beat one up if they ever met one. I am one, I remember thinking to myself and in my naiveté at the time, I wondered how Canton had become such an unsafe place for one like me. What I was hearing from priests and teachers and Boy Scout leaders and the kids around me paralyzed me in fear. How could this have happened to me? My only solution was to get out, and I did just that. I convinced my parents to allow me to go to a boarding high school outside of Canton. Its liberal approach to intellectual development felt safer to me, and it was. Faced with what to do next, I headed off to San Francisco, where I had heard that the community there was more accepting of gay people. The San Francisco community proved to feel like a haven of safety, even though the messages from the larger national community loomed against gay people, there was hope in making change though political action with the gay rights movement. I remained in San Francisco for 20 years and during that time engaged a wonderful education. It was also during those years that I embraced Buddhism and found a sacred community of gay men with whom I practiced the Buddhist spiritual path.
After completing a post doctoral fellowship, an opportunity came my way for employment, in of all places, BOSTON. I thought long and hard, I prayed a lot and even consulted a psychic (!), but the wise guardian angels in my life gave me the nod about coming back to Massachusetts. Sometimes when a cycle is done, the best thing to do is to pay attention and move on. And the cycle in California was done for me. My Buddhist heart reminded me that everything in life is impermanent, that no matter where you go there will be suffering, and that the goal is to become more compassionate toward the suffering. I had learned to live healthfully as a gay man while I was in California, and to unlearn many of the things that I had learned so early on as a gay kid about being a gay person. The California part of the cycle had prepared me to come home. And what I found when I got here was amazing. I found Boston to be a more gay-friendly city, and a couple years later, I met the man who, in 13 days will become my legal spouse. Brian Phillips. And to my absolute amazement, the state later legalized same sex marriage. Could this be true? What incredible privilege. What an amazing gift.
So, here’s the full circle part. In January of this year, Brian and I were driving through Canton, and we had actively been looking for a spiritual home. Amidst the white of the snow and the white clapboards of the building, we saw your gay freedom flag. I just shook my head in disbelief. Is this the final piece of the closing of the full circle, I wondered? So, we came here to find the absolute opposite of what drove me out of Canton. Here we found a loving community of understanding and accepting people who value us for what we are and support us in our plight, as we are learning to return the gift that you so graciously and generously give to us.
But that kid inside of me who grew up in Canton is tapping me on the shoulder to remind me that I shouldn’t forget where I came from and what I experienced. Prejudice and injustice toward gay and lesbian people is not uncommon in our own backyards. I remember reading about one such instance some months ago in The Boston Globe that focused on a gay man’s experience in a church here in Canton. Allegedly, in response to an anti-gay sermon a gay man stood up and stated that he was a gay man and intended no harm to anyone in the church. This statement lead to verbal altercations among the church attendees which then lead to the man’s escorted departure from the church by the police.
Homophobia is alive and well in our culture, and it is worse in places where decades-old anti-gay laws are still in place. There are many states which have amended their constitutions even recently to exclude equal rights for lesbian and gay people. I am very aware that we have a long way to go to live up to the maxim claimed by our pledge of allegiance which promises ‘liberty and justice for all.’
And how do we get there? I listen to my Buddhist heart as it directs me to the eightfold path, a fundamental dimension of Buddhist practice. This path involves taking one step at a time with maintaining the right view of what’s happening with the right intentions to make improvements. The path involves ethical training with using the right speech when discussing the issues at hand and backing the speech up with the right action. And the path requires us to put forth the right effort with the right mindfulness and the right concentration. Following this path, I believe that we are headed in the right direction together. Following this path, we are all Buddhas.
Brian’s Words:
We all have dreams, some big and some small, but each serves as a little beacon of hope. Some of our dreams are outlandish, could never happen in a million years, no-way dreams, but it’s still fun to get lost in them. Just because you know they never could come true doesn’t make them any less satisfying.
Some of our dreams are warm and comforting, like memories of Mom’s tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches on a snowy day. You might never re-live those moments in life but they make you feel safe and loved.
Some of our dreams leave us confused, confounded, wondering how to make sense of the experience, asking if there’s even a rational explanation. You may not come away with an answer, but are questions such a bad place to start?
Some of our dreams are a bit scary and unsettling, challenging us to consider a different way of looking at the familiar. They might take you somewhere you’ve never been before but maybe a little adventure is just what you need.
I have lots of dreams, some big wonderful flights of fancy and some small, simple possibilities, but I have hopes that they might all come true, as many of them already have.
One of these big dreams was to find a welcoming congregation, an accepting community where I could regain the spiritual life long neglected. That dream became a reality the day that Geoff and I walked through those front doors.
My conservative Baptist upbringing gave me a genuine appreciation of the spiritual life, for which I am truly grateful, but it nearly extinguished my dreams and any hope of dreams-come-true. For all the teachings of a loving God and a soul-saving Jesus, there was no room for a born-again gay youth in their midst.
My sojourn at a Christian college pushed me to question and explore. It stretched my intellect but it further squelched my dreams, my hopes of fitting in as a gay man. I was taught to be a whole person, but that person had to hide his soul.
Dreams don’t die easily, even when we lose track of them. They lie quietly somewhere, waiting for us to rediscover them when we need them most.
I dared to dream that one day I might meet the man I was meant to spend my life with. We’d be free to live our lives together, just as any other couple, man and woman, man and man, woman and woman. We’d work side by side to build a home, a family, a future, and our commitment to one another would be no less authentic than any other couple’s.
I didn’t dare dream that we’d ever be allowed to marry, to become one legally. Such a dream was too fantastic to entertain, too wonderful to be real. But as is the case with all dreams, the magic is in the surprise, the sheer joy we experience when they step out into the light of day.
I am so thankful for the privilege, the sacred gift of equal marriage, for being able to share this journey with this loving community.