Marriage

I’m told that a key indicator of getting better in my circumstances is when you stop thinking all the time about your body and the location of the nearest toilet. On Thursday and Friday last week I had hours when I didn't worry. Two days in a row with hours free of worry is great progress. Of course Saturday was a reminder that recovery isn’t simple. For about 12 hours I sat and napped and read in my easy chair, 10 steps away from the bathroom. I made that trip many times.

More than enough said on that front.

Last Monday my sister Sarah and Kevin Whisenant were married. They seem to be a great couple, both in love and very clear headed and smart, all at the same time. It probably helps that they are both in their 40s. They each sold their living alone houses, and together bought a living together house. That’s a kind of financial wherewithal and security that Linda and I couldn’t imagine when we got married, almost two decades younger than Sarah and Kevin, and with less than a thousand dollars between us before we bought wedding rings for about $100 each and our first car for $425.

The wedding was very normal seeming from a secular point of view, but quite unusual from inside a Mormon worldview. My daughter’s wedding in June will also be unusual from a Mormon point of view, for a different reason.

From a Mormon point of view, there are three kinds of marriages:

1. The premier, how it’s supposed to be, marriage in the temple, referred to as a “sealing for time and eternity.” This is for a man and woman who are both card-carrying by-the-book orthodox Mormons who follow all the rules.
2. A civil or religious service by a judge or minister or Mormon bishop, for time (“till death do you part”). This is for non-Mormons, and a Mormon marrying a non-Mormon, and two Mormons one or both of whom is not quite the card-carrying by-the-book orthodox obey-all-the-rules type.
3. Not legal marriage. Two men. Two women. More than two, as in plural marriage or polygamy, which was good for Mormons in the 19^th century, but illegal in the United States and forbidden by the LDS church in the 20^th and 21^st century. (The group in Texas is referred to as an FLDS group, the F being “fundamentalist.” The distinction is important. The FLDS haven’t been part of or tolerated in the LDS church for more than a century.)

My sister’s wedding wasn’t any of these. From all I can tell, and others confirm, Sarah and Kevin are both card-carrying by-the-book orthodox Mormons, and they really wanted to be married in the temple. In my opinion, they should have been married in the temple. They were prevented from doing so by an arbitrary ruling that relates to Kevin’s having been married before and divorced at least 10 years ago. As I understand it, the ruling was that they could wait another year and be married in the temple, or get married now in a civil service and be sealed in the temple in another year. They took option 2.

So the two card-carrying by-the-book loyal committed Mormons are making do with a “lesser” marriage, one which is perfectly legal, but not what they really wanted, for at least a year. I don’t understand. I can’t even make up an explanation that is coherent. It is arbitrary.

My daughter’s wedding isn’t any of these either. My daughter is Mormon in the sense that she was baptized and confirmed in a Mormon ceremony, and grew up--at least until her late-teens--as a Mormon, with all the education and activities and experiences of a Mormon girl. In some important ways she will always be Mormon whether she likes it or not. On the other hand, Evan is not Mormon and never has been. So one might categorize their wedding in the second group, a religious service where a Mormon is marrying a non-Mormon.

What makes their marriage different is that Britta and Evan did not meet as Mormon meeting non-Mormon. The “Mormon” part of the pair isn’t making do with a “lesser” marriage because she can’t have the temple sealing with a non-Mormon spouse. Britta chose a church long before she met Evan, and followed that choice from college to Boston to Brattleboro to Belmont to Cambridge, and then met Evan, a fellow choir member, under the yellowwood tree over punch and cookies in the fellowship hour after services. They will be married in their church, with their choir around them, with their minister Mary solemnizing their commitment. They are home, getting married in the very best way they know, and they and we are celebrating from beginning to end.

I was asked to say a prayer at the end of my sister’s wedding celebration. It was short. I offered thanks that we were all able to celebrate their wedding, and prayed for a long, happy, healthy marriage for my sister and new brother. That was it. Some people commented positively on the short prayer. I thought it was enough, and best short and to the point. Furthermore, what nobody knew was that the next phrase, the one I cut off, would have been a petition for the day when any two adults who want to be married can celebrate a legal and lawful marriage in the same way. But that wouldn’t have been fair. While I am confident the first two phrases were shared by the group, I know that my third phrase would have been met with opposition, for reasons I cannot fathom.

My views about marriage are on the record, and have been since 1998. It turns out that a speech I gave in 1998 at an Affirmation conference was recorded and is available on-line. One view of that talk is that I was ahead of my time, advocating for same-sex marriage. Another view is that I made everybody upset, telling Mormons that same-sex marriage should be legal, and telling gay men that they should get married if they wanted to have sex. It was not quite the message anybody wanted to hear (and it isn't quite what I said). A third view is that I once told my daughter (when she was 24) that we had never had the infamous “birds and bees” conversation, and since she already knew all she needed to know about mechanics, the rest of what I had to say was in this talk.

The talk lasts 47 minutes and it isn't a comedy. If you are interested, click here for an mp3 version.

The talk has been available for years at http://www.affirmation.org/audio/09_1998/chris_kimball_copyright.shtml, but that version is coded for Real Player which I dislike and refuse to use.