by Chelsea Harris, Universal Life Church Monastery, guest writer for Kaptur talking about her personal Pop Up Chapel experience...
I read about the Pop Up Chapel and I knew I had to go. I didn’t care if it was in New York and I was in Seattle, if my boss wouldn’t send me I would pay for the trip myself.
You may be wondering why my boss would ever send me to 24 gay weddings in Central Park. The brief explanation is I work for the Universal Life Church Monastery. We ordain people to become ministers online, help them navigate the legal logistics of registering with the county clerk and even give them tips on how to write a wedding service. Rough work, considering I can’t marry the person I love in 44 states in the union, including my own.
However, for the gay community online ordinations are integral. Because of the religious exemptions in the Marriage Equality law, religious organizations don’t have to provide service to gay couples. Knowing this, I figured that the people performing these ceremonies were our ministers. So I looked them up, and they were right there in our database. Normally, our ministers are strangers; they become ordained, order products and we never meet them. This would be the first time I had ever seen a United Life Church minister in action.
I was blown away by their sincerity, by the beauty of their ceremonies. All thoughts of the necessity of seminary left my head and I know now that ministers are capable not because of their training but because of their intentions and I had more faith in my job than ever before.
Growing up gay in a conservative small town, I never thought this would be possible. I was convinced that for the rest of my life I would be hated for living my life exactly as everyone else did, happily in love. However, on this day with the hot sun beating down on me, I heard a bystander yell as a couple pulled away from their first married kiss that “the whole state of New York is so proud of you” and I did the only thing you could: I cried. Only instead of being tears of frustration and shame, they were my first gay tears of joy.
If you would like to perform weddings, gay or straight, please feel free to visit us at www.themonastery.org and see if it is a good fit.
Photos provided by Amanda Davidson.
No comments:
Post a Comment