At our wedding reception in October 2008, Carl and I presented a binder, and a little speech, about our several attempts, over these 32 years, to "tie the knot" for our relationship. The contents of the binder are reproduced here.
We met on June 6, 1976 (which was Pentecost night) at the Nu Town Saloon in Phoenix, Arizona.
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We had a service of celebration of our relationship on June 6, 1981 in our living room in Silverlake. No Lutheran church at that time would have welcomed us as a couple or blessed our relationship.
Twenty-five people attended the private ceremony including another Lutheran pastor, a Presbyterian minister and a Franciscan priest.
An unexpected guest at the ceremony was a City of Los Angeles fireman, coming to report that he had accidentally backed a fire truck into the car of one of our guests, while responding to a fire in the neighborhood: someone’s barbeque had set a nearby power pole on fire, which causes us to lose electricity during the ceremony.
Fifty people attended the reception in the back yard. (No photographs were taken during the ceremony.)
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We decided to file a Declaration of Domestic Partnership on November 17, 2001 at the Village at Ed Gould Plaza near West Hollywood. We met friends there doing the same thing, as part of a daylong push by hundreds of same-gender couples to enhance the numbers of those taking advantage of the new California law creating a Domestic Partnership Registry.When the Mayor of San Francisco began permitting same-sex marriages in February, 2004 we drove up with Michael Nelson and Dale Von Seggern, and served as witnesses for one another, in the Rotunda at City Hall on February 16, 2004.
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Only a couple of pictures were taken while we were waiting in line (in the rain overnight) and inside City Hall that morning. Because of the hasty trip and the rain, we were dressed only in street clothes.
But with television’s harsh lights glaring, we exchanged vows, and were interviewed by CBS. All four of us appeared briefly on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather that night. (It was during this time that the Call Committee and Church Council of Hollywood Lutheran Church was considering whether to recommend Dan for the Call to serve as Pastor.)
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Later in 2004, court orders and lawsuits as a result of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s courageous decision caused the California Supreme Court to vacate the marriages of over 4,000 same-sex couples.
When the documentary film “Pursuit of Equality” about Mayor Newsom’s decision to push the envelope was debuted at Outfest in 2006, we took our San Francisco marriage license to the Director’s Guild Theatre with us. During the reception after the screening, Mayor Newsom autographed the license—a great souvenir, but deprived of its legal status.
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The lawsuits were later consolidated before the Supreme Court, and worked their way through the California court system. Almost everyone was surprised or shocked when the final decision came down on May 16, 2008 calling for equality under the law for same-sex couples. The Supreme Court allowed a 30-day period before the decision took effect and same-sex marriage licenses became available on June 17, 2008.
We decided to tie the knot the fourth time, and chose this date, October 11, 2008, for our legal wedding because it is known as “National Coming Out Day.”
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Because of the twisted and misguided damage done by Proposition 8 in 2008, the battle goes on. We support any and all efforts to have Proposition8 repealed. At the same time we look forward to the current federal lawsuit to overturn it. We believe opposition ot same-gender civil marriage is crumbling even if it looks like it is succeeding in the short term. At the same time, we realize that the religious recognition of same-gender life-long commitments will always be a matter for individual consciences. Hopefully, the permission given to recognize life-long relationships, by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in August 2008, will eventually have a positive effect on those whose consciences are slow or stubborn.