The Supreme Court’s June decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, allowing businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples based on religious objections, took me back to a day in 1996, well before same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. Christopher and I were planning our wedding.
It was the look on their faces that made me stumble over my words, my face suddenly hot. The couple, a husband-and-wife flute-and-cello duo who specialized in wedding receptions, backed away from me with a look that combined fascination and contempt.
I didn’t think much back then about whether it was legal for businesses to refuse to serve us because we were gay. Such discrimination was an everyday occurrence. I’d had those kinds of interactions all my life. Familiarity didn’t diminish the shame.
Later that week, we received a letter from the musicians. It wasn’t enough simply to refuse to play for our guests because we were two gay men. It was also necessary to make sure we understood their objection. They cited Biblical chapter and verse in great detail.
We brushed it off. The idea of questioning their refusal didn’t occur to us. Prejudice was normal. Gay marriage was not.
It was hard to get married. It wasn’t legal, and our religious denomination was struggling with the question of sacralizing same-sex marriage. And capitalism hadn’t yet done its work. The now ubiquitous gay-marriage industrial complex did not exist to escort us down the wedding-planning aisle. We went into the experience completely naïve, carried forward by a wave of love and possibility.
Family and friends generally reacted to our news with blank stares. “Can you do that?” was the most common reaction from straight people. From gay people, it was “Why would you do that?” But people came around, mostly. Children seemed the least confused.
We set the date, May 25, and sent our wedding announcement to the Boston Globe. Living Arts Editor Mary Jane Wilkinson summarily rejected it. This time we decided to push back and wrote to the Globe’s ombudsman.
“There have to be guidelines for everything you do at a paper,” Wilkinson said in the newspaper’s response. “Otherwise, where do you draw the line?” I guess they drew the line at two adults making a public announcement of their decision to join their lives.
To be honest, interactions like those are not the ones that remain most vivid in memory, perhaps because they weren’t so outside the norm. It was the acts of kindness that continue to stand out.
We walked into Ronnie Szeszler’s jewelry shop on Commercial Street in Provincetown and told her we were getting married and were looking for rings. She gave us a lovely smile and said something so simple that it was shocking: “Oh! Congratulations! Let me show you some rings I love.”
It sounds trite now, but I had to make an effort to remain composed. Prejudice was normal. A warm smile of congratulations wasn’t.
Then there was the day we met with Ann Robert, the imposing matriarch of the storied Boston restaurant Maison Robert, setting of untold numbers of celebrations. We were more cautious in Boston than in Provincetown. I tried to talk through arranging our “party” without ever mentioning the word “wedding.” Why make ourselves vulnerable?
Well into an awkward conversation, Mme. Robert furrowed her brow and asked, “Is this a wedding reception?” I felt the cold in my gut. When we replied that it was, she said matter-of-factly but with a little smile, “Oh, well, now I see.” She continued, without missing a beat, “And will you have dancing?” We would, we said.
I have no idea what either Ronnie Szeszler’s or Ann Robert’s religious convictions were. What I do know is that they made us feel like human beings. Maison Robert is gone, and Mme. Robert died earlier this year, but the jewelry store on Commercial Street is still there. Sometimes I see Ms. Szeszler up ahead of me with her cart in the produce aisle of the Stop & Shop, and I still feel grateful.
The trickle-down effect from 303 Creative has begun. Texas Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley has refused to perform same-sex weddings, citing the Supreme Court’s decision. Soon, moving around the public square in the U.S. will be like moving through an airport boarding area. We’ll be left to wonder which citizens boarding group we’ll be assigned to.
George Will wondered in the Washington Post recently why a same-sex couple would choose to compel the involvement of hostile vendors in their celebration when there are alternatives. That’s the wrong question. Why would a society sanction the discriminatory treatment of its citizens in the public square? As Mary Jane Wilkerson put it, where do you draw the line?
