Love and Marriage

Beware: Shameless plug to follow.


This weekend in Washington, DC, "The Weimar House", the mock horror film that I wrote and produced will be showing at the LGBT film festival on Saturday at 3pm. To say that I'm thrilled is a major understatement: I'm ecstatic, and just very sorry that I can't be there. It will also be showing in Pittsburgh, PA in about a week at their film festival. This video short pokes fun at the insanity behind the same-sex marriage debate, particularly the assertion that somehow allowing couples of the same gender to wed will "stain" straight marriages, and somehow disrupt gravity or something. Some audiences have seen the humor behind the commentary; others have not. And that's art for you.

And it leads me to thinking about one of the readings from this week's Daily Office. The very famous passage from 1 Corinthians:

"Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not envious, boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put away childish ways. For now, we see through a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now, faith, hope, love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." --1 Corinthians 13: 4-13.

Anyone who has ever been to a wedding, no doubt, has heard this passage read. And I suppose the purpose is to sing the praises of love and the adult act of getting married and isn't love a many splendored thing. It is. And so is God.

See, when I read this passage from Paul, I began to substitute "God" wherever it says "Love". Try it out: "God" is patient, "God" is kind. "God" is not envious, boastful or arrogant or rude. These, in my experience, all seem true. And so I think that's what is at play here. I don't think this is about the butterflies in the stomach, the sweaty palms, the tingly all over sensation of being romantically all googly-eyed in love with your beloved. It's about recognizing there is love, and this love is so deep, so vast, so wide that it is available to one and all... whether you have a partner or not! No fancy white gowns and snazzy tuxes necessary. This love sweeps the one who is the most lonely off their feet in a tender embrace of "You matter to me!"

And that is extended to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. We are part of that embrace. We are included in that group that currently only sees in part, but will know this love fully, even as it has fully known us. I can only imagine how it would be to attend an LGBT wedding with this reading!

The wedding in The Weimar House is fictional. The women playing the lesbian couple were actresses. But the basic premise of the storyline is true to life. It is one where love conquers hate. And where there is love, faith and hope also abide. I have faith and hope that one day, such weddings will not be fictional in the state of Florida.