on marriage

Music: Amon Tobin: Bricolage (1997)

This weekend I officiated a wedding between two very loving, very smart people in Denton, Texas. This is the third couple I have married in as many years. I originally married some friends back in Louisiana at their request, because they wanted something fun, different, and non-religious. The same story with Gigi and Billy this weekend: they wanted something more their "style," which means, something both sincere and respectful but fun. I was a little nervous, because I don't know the couple or their families very well, but I managed to pull off my part without any mistakes. The couple did their part very well, too (including some water works). It was, in my opinion, a marvelous ceremony and I felt good leaving the couple to their promises to be good to and for each other.

I have been thinking about marriage a lot in the past month or two, for both personal and professional reasons (as if I could keep them separated). Personally, this week is an important break-up anniversary with one of the two people I thought it might be possible to make a life-long commitment to. Professionally, many of my beloved friends are urging a boycott of a conference hotel because its owner opposes LGBT marriage. And then there's the personal/private ambivalence I have toward the history of the institution: you don't have to go very far back in history to learn that marriage was originally a male sex-right over the bodies of women as property. The history of marriage, in other words, ain't pretty.

Part of my ambivalence about "gay marriage" is that its history and conceptual lineage is one that excludes homosexual desire. I saw Judith Butler give a moving speech once in Minneapolis about opposing gay marriage that has always stuck with me. I don't remember the specifics, but in general her claim was that gay marriage only furthers the oppressive social and cultural prohibitions against gay desire. In a sense, gay marriage represents the "surburbinization" of gay desire, cleaning it up for hetero-respectibility. Making a promise to a life-partner outside of legal recognition, she suggested, is perhaps even more sacred and meaningful.

Such ambivalence is not limited, of course, to gay marriage, but marriage in general. Only until relatively recently could we argue the institution was beneficial to both parties.

Yet, contradictory creatures as we are, I've agreed to marry people many times now. A divorced friend and I were talking outside of the place we were having the rehearsal dinner. She said she didn't believe in marriage, but supported her friend. I drew the analogy about the hotel boycott and said I felt the same way, but then underscored the legal issues (and their importance). I found myself articulating my own rationalization for being an Officiant for weddings in a way that suddenly made sense. You know, sometimes you have positions but don't realize what they are, exactly, until you are forced to express them in speech. So there I was, defending marriage: "It's a solemn promise to be good to someone else." And what's wrong with a promise? Marriage is a big kind of promise, and I said that it deserves the gravity we tend to give it. Making a promise to another person for life is pretty interesting, moving, and important. So few things do we do in life that has such lasting consequence.

Standing under the gazebo, looking into the groom and bride's eyes, I felt the gravity of what we were doing, and was moved by it. They had prepared their own vows, and as they said them many people were sobbing, including my friend who does not believe in marriage. We were all taken with the spirit of sincerity, and perhaps unlike other couples I've married, this seemed like the kind of marriage that will stick. My father is a wedding photographer, and I've grown-up going to weddings; you can feel those that are for show, and then, those that are the "real deal." This time, everyone could tell that the promise was not for show, but for each other. Standing there with my collar on, watching these two make a pact and mean it, I felt a conviction in public promise-making that I hadn't felt before. The cynic in me evaporated.

In the end, despite its history and ideology, I think marriage is a sacred promise that showcases the best of what human beings have to offer to each other: their words, keeping their words. Perhaps I find such a promise so important because so few people these days keep their word; so few people these days seem loyal to one another (and certainly not in the workplace; all bets are off there!). I see no reason why anyone should not be afforded the opportunity to make another public promise to another human being. Such a promise need not be in the eyes of the law, but certainly in the eyes of those whom the lovers hold dear.

Some years ago I had my fortune read by psychic, and many years before that, a Tarot reader. Both women said the same thing: I will not marry, but I will have children. There's no way to tell if I would ever personally leave the surly bonds of bachelordom for marriage (though I'm open to being persuaded; lately I've been quite doubtful). Regardless, this weekend I did finally make up my mind about the institution of marriage: I'm for it, gay, straight, and everything in between.