I was recently the Minister at a Gay Wedding Ceremony between two beautiful men in California. Facilitating this public witnessing of Love’s complete lack of prejudice is one of the most deeply satisfying highlights of my already adventurous life.

I’m a deeply heterosexual man … and I know this with certainty because I spent a few months in my early 20’s – when I was a military officer – wondering if I could be gay. I never experimented physically, but I did in my thoughts. “Could I make out with this guy?” I remember asking myself silently over beers with a friend. After all, if I could appreciate a man’s beauty, did that make me gay? I wasn’t sure, so I dove into the question. After a few months of sitting with the possibility, I discovered I just couldn’t be gay. I was – and still am – way too enchanted by the soft, undulating female form, and way too repelled by chiseled jaws and other men’s penises (I do enjoy my own, which curiously does not appear to make me gay).

I believe male homophobia is largely a result of the fear men have that they could be gay. That, and our culture’s ongoing tendency to look upon homosexuality as an undesirable affliction. Most men surely are not gay, but refusing to really explore the question only sustains the horror that it could be true. What we resist will surely persist in some way! By really giving myself to that question so long ago, I’ve since been able to work and play with some of the most incredible artists and thinkers and visionaries that I’ve ever known, who also happened to be thoroughly homosexual.

Anyway, I want to share the script I wrote for this ceremony. Should you have the delightful opportunity to marry two of your beloved gay friends, you are welcome to use it … and add your own flair; it is a gay wedding after all!

** Register FREE for an official license to conduct marriage ceremonies @ http://www.theamm.org

A Gay Marriage Ceremony

written and prepared by Bryan Reeves

~ ~

WELCOME

We are gathered today in the presence of witnesses for the joining in bond of matrimony – _________________ – and – ___________________.

The great universal experience in human life, across all boundaries, throughout our entire world, is love.

Curiously, we live in a time when humanity is deeply confused about love. We tend to think of love as something we get from outside ourselves, that someone else can give to us, or take away, something that can only be true and legitimate when it shows up in particular forms, bound by a set of predetermined rules.

However, we are right now witnessing a thrilling moment in our evolution on this planet. An evolution in which love’s irresistible force is breaking through humanity’s rigid intellectual barriers like dripping water boring holes through ages-old mountain rock. Slowly, but assuredly, we are remembering who we are: brilliant beings descended from the stars, countless luminescent plankton glowing bright and beautiful in this unfathomably vast Ocean of Love that we call the Universe.

Yes, Love – that overwhelming love that isn’t bound by intellectual concepts and cleverly negotiated agreements – that Love is finally going mainstream!

Sure, we’ve got a ways to go. But then, what fun would it be if we had already arrived? The movie would be over. The last song would be sung. The final chapter would be read … and then right here we would be … hungry for a new story, a new adventure to indulge our fantasies. We’re human beings. We thrive on adventure. We live inside of stories. And every good story, every compelling adventure, requires transformation, which itself requires a time of darkness, which really only means a time of profound unknowing.

Like any worthy hero’s journey, our world must struggle and battle and brave fierce elements, both within and without. We must appear to lose our way completely during the darkest hours, but only long enough for the darkness to completely devour our lies before spitting us out triumphant and reinvigorated into the refreshing light of awareness of who we truly are.

David Wilcox, in his song, LOVE WILL SHOW THE WAY, sings

Look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify

What’s stronger than hate

Would they not arrange the stage

To look as if the hero came too late?

He’s almost in defeat

It’s looking like the evil side will win

So on the edge of every seat

From the moment that the whole thing begins, it is

Love who makes the mortar

And it’s love who stacked these stones

And it’s love who made the stage here

Although it looks like we’re alone

In this scene set in shadows

Like the night is here to stay

There is evil cast around us

But it’s love that wrote the play

For in this darkness love can show the way

So on this beautiful California day, as genuine Love burrows its way deeper into our collective being, we are blessed to witness a Love victorious. Two exquisite humans being, two beautiful, kind, loving men, have decided to fully face each other, mind, body, and soul, and enthusiastically profess their love and commitment to each other, openly, proudly, before their community.

Using words like rocket ships to launch their hearts’ deepest truths off into the larger world, these two human beings have courageously stepped forward today to bear witness for the rest of us, that there is indeed a love that lies beyond human description. That love indeed, wrote this play.

While this moment is the culmination of two journeys meeting in profound mutual awareness, it is but the beginning of another journey. And like any magical journey, it will bring our heroes face to face with themselves, their insanities and sore blind-spots, their quirks and their quarks, and any playful demons still lurking in dark shadows, but most  gloriously of all, their own wildly radiant light.

These two men are embarking – well, continuing – on perhaps the greatest journey we take while in these bodies. The journey of learning to fully love another human being.

I don’t know what lies ahead for you. No one can. But I do know, with that profound, ineffable love at your core, that you will ultimately be victorious on your hero’s journey. I am certain the ride will be sweet and playful and exhilarating and magical and will take you wondrous places that alone you simply could not enter.

If you are truly ready to begin this most incredible journey – and you’ll know by the enthusiasm underlying any bit of angst you might be experiencing on the surface – then please face one another:

~ ~

VOWS and EXCHANGE OF RINGS

Do you ____________________ take this man/woman to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife?

ANSWER: “I do”

And do you promise to keep him, love and comfort, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse and to be faithful in the truth until death do you part?

ANSWER: “I do”

REPEAT: Do you, ____________________, take this man/woman to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife?

ANSWER: “I do”

And do you promise to keep him, love and comfort, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse and to be faithful in the truth until death do you part?

ANSWER: “I do”

Do you have rings? (YES)

REPEAT AFTER ME

Person 1: “____________________, this ring is a token of my love. I marry you with this ring, with all that I have and all that I am.”

Person 2: “____________________, this ring is a token of my love. I marry you with this ring, with all that I have and all that I am.”

~ ~

CLOSING AND DECLARATION 

It is my profound honor to bear witness to your sacred union today. This act of professing not just your love, but your complete commitment to each other while in these fascinating bodies, is among the most sacred of rituals that we humans engage in. While this commitment is not to be taken lightly, it is absolutely to be taken with joy and humor and faith in knowing that there will be no surprises on this journey that the two of you together cannot move powerfully through with respect, kindness, understanding, and loads of loving laughter.

As you are choosing to take this momentous step on your adventure together, always remember these words from our beloved Richard Bach, who wrote in his book The Bridge Across Forever:

“I’m here not because I am supposed to be here, or because I’m trapped here, but because I’d rather be with you than anywhere else in the world.”

May all beings be blessed by the presence of your union on this planet.

It is with great pleasure that I now pronounce you husband and husband / wife and wife.

You may kiss.