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Are you looking for a way to acknowledge your support for our LGBT friends and families during your hetero wedding ceremony? From the covert to overt, here are 10 ways to use your wedding to show your support for marriage equality.
1. Use gender neutral terms in your ceremony. This is a great way to sort of sneak in your support, and even the most conservative of guests can't take offense.
2. Represent the rainbow. Rainbow flags are the symbol of LGBT pride and they're also pretty. Add some rainbow elements to your wedding as a way let your gay pride flag fly, as it were.
3. Add a moment of silence for those who can't marry. A silent “pouring one out for the homies” if you will.
4. Use your straight marriage certificate to make a point about gay marriage. This is a great way to use your paperwork to voice your opinion to the governmental powers-that-be.
5. Add a reading to your ceremony. Sarah and Adam worked with their officiant to include marriage equality in their ceremony by reading this passage from the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage:
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Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support.
Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.
It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a “civil right.” Without the right to choose to marry one is excluded from the full range of human experience.
6. Use marriage equality stickers as favors. Jill and Kim bought marriage equality stickers for their reception tables. Since those specific stickers are now out of print, I found a few good ones on Amazon here and here.
7. Include a link on your wedsite to a marriage equality charity. Some suggestions: MarriageEquality.org, Lamda Legal, Freedom to Marry. Or perhaps look for a charity that is fighting for the rights to gay marriage in your particular state.
8. Encourage charitable donations in lieu of presents. Use the suggestions from the above tip, or chose your own charities, and then ask your guests to donate in honor of you two, instead of gifting you a blender.
9. Make a donation to a marriage equality charity and make reference to said donation in your program.
10. Have a WhiteKnot.org table set up. The White Knot is a marriage equality organization whose slogan is that everyone should have the right to tie the knot, and their symbol is, appropriately, a white knot. You could put out a little table with white knot ribbons, and a sign about your commitment to marriage equality with info about the White Knot organization. You and your partner could wear a white knot during the festivities, and you could make them available to guests to wear.
I know there are even more creative and wonderful ways to show your support of marriage equality. How are you using your wedding to show your support?
About the Author: Megan Finley Horowitz
When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. (You're welcome, world!) You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine!
