George and Brad’s wedding

THAT was an amazing experience. IGeorge standing at the front of the makeshift chapel, marrying Brad, with Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols on either side as best man and matron of honor respectively.

Kath and I were seated nearby Harlan and Susan Ellison (with whom we were also slated to sit at the reception.) Atmospheric music was supplied by a stunningly attired Asian woman playing a stringed instrument called the Koto. I admit I was biting the inside of my cheek not to laugh when a singer urged the audience to join him in a chorus of “Climb Every Mountain,” which some actually did. But then George and Brad made their own tongue-in-cheek entrance, descending the stairs to “One” from “Chorus Line” (now THAT I would have been willing to sing.) The ceremony was alternately loving, funny, and moving.

The ceremony was followed by a mingling cocktail reception. We chatted with Nichelle for some time (she remembered me from Dragon*con) and for a while she actually had her arm around me! Granted, her ankle had gone weak and mostly she was leaning on me so she wouldn’t fall, but still!

The dinner afterward was amazing, a fusion cuisine combined with memorable performances from, among others, the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus. Among the notables in attendance was legendary Senator Daniel Inouye, and a variety of people–including Harlan–gave toasts celebrating the happy couple.

I still cannot fathom how any reasonable person can object to gays marrying. Even Obama doesn’t support the idea of gay marriage. Last I checked, love was a family value.

PAD

105 comments on “George and Brad’s wedding

  1. I think part of this debate centers around what some people call ‘marriage’.

    To many (usually those against the idea of gay marriage), ‘Marriage’ means a ceremony in “A Christian Church” with “A Christian Pastor”, blessed in the eyes of the “One Only God”.

    So by this definition, someone who is married in a courthouse, by a justice of the peace, isn’t “really” married, and is in fact actively degrading the “meaning of marriage”?

    In the United States, marriage is in fact a legal contract, entered into only by adults of a certain age (which age being set by the individual states) who are not obviously intoxicated (no, you can’t get really ripped and get married without being aware of what you’re doing, even in Vegas). It carries with it certain rights and obligations, and can only be abrogated through a court of law. If it were as purely religious as some would like to believe, it would be as easy to dissolve a marriage as it is to change churches.

    This being said, it should become obvious that denying the benefits of this contract to certain individuals for no better reason than the gender of the signatories is neither legally nor ethically supportable. After weathering 25 years of societal disapproval, in a situation in which they might have actually been applauded for splitting up, it’s patently obvious that George and Brad love each other deeply. I know that “love” is not a “traditional” reason for marriage (until the beginning of the 20th century, couples married for some sort of advantage, hoping that love would come later), but that’s one tradition that I’m happy to see change. 🙂

  2. Jasmine –

    The “gay culture” thing is very complicated, but I think gays are sometimes unjustly accused of defining themselves too much by their sexual orientation. It’s not that they don’t, it’s just that EVERYONE is very much defined by their sexual orientation. It’s just that it isn’t so noteworthy with straight people, because their orientation is the default.

    A related question would be the roles played by gender identity. For instance, the amount of time, energy, and money the average woman in the West spends on her appearance is a lot higher than the average man’s. While the extremes of such behaviour are sometimes criticized, no one raises an eyebrow if a woman dolls herself up a bit. It’s “expected”.

    Now, if a gay male spends a similar amount of time and effort dolling himself up, he is more likely to be accused of being a stereotype, or of letting his gayness define him, or whatever. And I think that is unfair.

    I suppose that what I’m saying is: the strategies straight men and women use to make themselves attractive and interesting to members of the opposite sex are seem as “natural”. While the same strategies in gay persons are often considered part of a stereotype or obsession.

  3. I’ve heart they actually did finally send Shatner an invite and he didn’t even bother to respond. So apparently age and pending mortality hasn’t made him any less of a douchebag.

    But on a more positive note, at least George now gets sex from Brad twice a week thanks to Howard Stern’s intervention.

  4. “I’ve heart they actually did finally send Shatner an invite and he didn’t even bother to respond.”

    And I heard that Elvis is alive and pumping gas at the local gas station.

  5. This has nothing to so with the above topic, but since Mr Ellison did attend the wedding, I have a hair thin reason to post the following ^_^:

    I just read that some Saudi clerica have declared a Fatwa on Mickey Mouse: http://www.newsarama.com/film/090822-MickeyFatwa.html

    One thing led to another and that led me to a link about Mr. Ellison having a dispute with Disney, which turns out to he true (I’ve never heard him speak of it in the few times I’ve seen him at conventions): http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/ellison.asp

    Again, sorry for the off topic post, its just something that caught me off guard 🙂

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