I attended a wedding over the weekend. My family is Italian and I’m sure it’s no surprise that we are overwhelmingly Catholic. However, because the ceremony wasn’t being held in a church but rather in the reception hall I had thought that I would be spared having to sit through another Catholic mass. I was wrong. *sigh*
As it turns out, it was a thankfully shortened version of the ceremony. I noticed that, even in abbreviated form, the priest managed to mention FIVE TIMES (we counted) that,”…God made us MALE and FEMALE so that we may join together in His love”. It would have been just another day in a big Italian Catholic family except this time, seated right up front were two good friends of the bride and groom who also happened to be a lesbian couple.
I’ve seen “the lesbian couple”, as they are called in the family, a few times at family gatherings that were large enough to encompass all of us. They have been together for many years, at least as long as many of the other couples in the room. Longer than some. I couldn’t help but cringe each time the phrase rolled around.
“Marriage was created by God for MALE and FEMALE…”, “We join in holy matrimony this MAN and WOMAN…”, etc.
With each repetition of the phrase it seemed that the priest was emphasizing it more and more and from our vantage point several rows back it almost seemed like he was glaring at the lesbian couple when he said it. (Probably my imagination.)
To be fair, I don’t blame the priest or the bride and groom. I don’t expect the Catholic church to change the traditional marriage vows. What happened that day was unavoidable and after so many years together probably no longer bothers the two women.
Still, I began to wonder what it felt like to be singled out in this way. How horrible it must be to have found someone who “gets” you, someone who loves you and you love back and to be sure that this is the person you want to share your life with, only to be subtly reminded in front of your friends and family how wrong and “unnatural” you are and moreover, to know that there are people who are actively working to keep you from enjoying what your friends are enjoying at that moment, using as their basis for this refusal a book of questionable authorship.
That’s all. There’s not much else to this post. It’s just a passing observation. I didn’t want this to turn into a lecture. The priest was doing his job, the bride and groom obliviously happy. No one meant any harm and yet, a little harm was done.
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