Marriage Matters Redux

I did a routine premarital counseling visit on Saturday.

We talked about all of the things I usually cover in a first session with a couple who wants me to marry them. We talked about how they met, how they courted, why they love each other. I asked questions about their plans for children, how they handle finances, what they argue about and how they handle disagreements, how their families feel about their relationship, and yes, dear readers, about sex.

I liked them a lot and agreed to perform their marriage ceremony this summer.

It was all routine, except that they were the first lesbian couple who had asked me to officiate at a wedding since the Connecticut law changed to make it legal for them to be married in my home state. I've performed many same sex ceremonies, but not one where I got to sign an official wedding license.

And so we decided to incorporate signing the wedding license directly into the ceremony, witnesses and all. And I will "pronounce" them legally wed, by the powers vested in me by the state of Connecticut, and supported by state laws in Massachusetts, Iowa, and Vermont (and perhaps other states by August as well.)

It will be a perfectly routine wedding -- with ring bearers and flower girls and parents walking them up the aisle and a chupah and glasses to break -- and tears and love and joy.

One day, such weddings will be routine everywhere.