Sanctity

Last night we had the pleasure of joining a bunch of friends to celebrate the engagement of two dear friends, Josh and Dave.

As we joined dozens of others in the quaint, secluded back patio of a local Indian restuarant, the gratuitous drinking and lacivious promiscuity was rampant as we … oh sorry, that’s what the fundies would want me to tell you.

But alas for our self-repressed sex-obsessed picketing brethren, there was no such “lifestyle”-esque goings-on. Actually it was a beautiful affair (as in celebration) among friends and family. Josh and Dave are two men who share a beautiful, devoted love for each other, and exude all the qualities you would expect from a healthy relationship. We all gathered to celebrate our friends (or sons, as all the parents were there too) commitment over Naan, Curry and Wine (and even fried banana). Forty or so good people, some straight, some gay, old, young, married and perpetually single, all who would, as one friend put it during a toast, “not hesitate to stab anyone who gets in the way of this couple.”

That eloquent friend went on to remind all of us the meaning of marriage and its importance in society. When Josh and Dave brought us in to celebrate with them, they effectively garnered our support for them, their relationship, and their commitment. By committing in community, they gain the strength of the community to help carry them through their marriage, rejoicing in the good times and mourning in the bad. Reaching out, bringing in, and all around treasuring the lives of two becoming one.

That’s why marriage is important, and that’s why marital love knows no bounds, and that’s why we cannot continue to discriminate marriage form whole swaths of the world’s population.

And I must say, when I and the Beau are faced continually with families would sooner eat razor blades than hug (or say hello to) their future son-in-law, it was beautiful to listen to Dave’s mother stand and toast,

When you’re raising a child, you wonder and worry how they’ll grow up, what they’ll become, and who they will meet and find happiness with … I couldn’t be prouder of my son, and I couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law.

Compare such loving motherly comments to the Beau’s and my mothers … they, and so many other fundamentalists, much prefer being mean in order to protect their “traditional sanctity of marriage.” But they miss out on the beauty, commitment, community, love, and respect that makes up all good relationships, gay or straight. If sanctity of marriage is all about the gender of the partners, then what of

Cousin Catherine who blamed her husband for cheating on her, commissioned a horrible divorce proceeding and turned the whole family against him, only to eventually reveal that their son was fathered by another man entirely … the guy she’s now living with.
The pastor who preached fundamentalist, wife-subjugating values while running out to visit the strip clubs and nudie bars almost every night.
The beau’s brother who extols right and wrong of sexual purity despite his own repeated liasons with his girlfriend (now wife – because that made it all better).
My ex-cousin-in-law who locked Doris in the garage and threatened her such that she felt she needed a knife.
The doctor uncle – now missionary – who divorced his wife of nearly twenty years because he … just wasn’t happy

But in our good friends Josh and Dave, we find an example of a strong relationship and lasting love and commitment. As begin the rest of their life in their community of friends, family, confidants and celebrants, we pray for the coninued success, the growth of their love, and the eventual societal blessing of our relationships so that we can protect the great sanctity of marriage, too.

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Filed under Daily-Life
08/15/06 12:09 AM
by The Blogger

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