Woman One:
Family and friends. Thank-you for being with us today. Some of you have traveled a long way to be here, and we deeply appreciate your presence.

Woman Two:
We are keenly aware today of how lucky we are to have loving, accepting families with whom we can share this important occasion in our lives. We know that not all people living alternative lifestyles are so fortunate.

Woman One:
On this day, we stand before all of you to become partners in marriage. It is impossible to describe what it feels like to finally have the legal right to marry one another! Perhaps we feel a bit like the suffragists felt back in 1920 when they cast the first ballots for American women. How empowering that must have felt after centuries of being treated as second-class citizens. Our country has finally bestowed upon gay couples a right that we have longed for, and fought for, for a very a long time. I’m sure all couples feel happy on their wedding day, but for us it holds a special, special magic.

Woman Two:
Perhaps what we are experiencing today also feels a bit like what African Americans felt when they became emancipated. Though nothing can match the pain that slavery wrought upon African Americans, all oppressed groups are united by their experience of being denied dignity, respect, and acceptance. We rejoice in the fact that the long, hard battle for a simple right, that should have been an automatic entitlement, is finally behind us.

Woman One:
We would like to now call forward Pastor Kern who has been performing gay marriage rituals long before this state authorized him to do so legally, to perform our marriage ceremony.

Officiate:
It is with great joy that I serve today, not just as a facilitator, but as someone who can actually bestow the legally sanctioned title of “married couple” upon _____ and _____. It is of course true that love and commitment are what make a marriage a “real” marriage. However, it is also a natural desire to want your partnership recognized, accepted and respected within your community and in and the broader society.

Officiate:
_______ and _______ have, over the past three years, created a loving partnership that continually enriches each of them as unique individuals. Through the process of learning to love one another more fully, they have, in turn, come to better understand and love themselves. Their friends marvel at the richness of their relationship, and envy the deep respect and caring they have for one another. _______ and _______ also share an outlandish sense of humor. Those of us who know and love them rejoice at the decision they have made to join their lives, in an even deeper way, through this act of marriage. They have called family and friends together today to witness as they proclaim their aspirations for this partnership. Please witness as they now proclaim their love and commitments to one another and join their lives in marriage.

Woman One:
As a lesbian couple, we of course, receive no social pressure to marry, as do our heterosexual counterparts. Religious leaders, psychologists, and talk show hosts do not bombard us daily with ideas about how to pick a marriage partner, build the perfect marriage etc., etc.

Woman Two:
In the absence of being told how to conduct our relationships, we were thus challenged to consider and decide for ourselves what a marriage should look like. We have arrived at some answers that feel right to us.

Woman One:
Please witness as we exchange the vows we have written.

Woman Two:
_______, I stand before family and friends to ask you to become my partner in marriage. Why do I ask this, and what am I asking? We have, for three years now, shared a very deep friendship, a joyous physical passion, enlightening conversations, and not least of all, a whole lot of fun. A year ago, we moved in together. After living with you for six months, I was overjoyed to discover that I never felt bored with your companionship. The more I know you, the more of you I want to know. Each day there is a new you for me to discover and explore more fully. Of course this loving exploration is difficult at times too. Like all couples, we sometimes fight. And those are scary times; it's frightening to live through those days wondering if we will be able to make it through the impasse. But we keep talking and talking. And, again and again we have worked through our doubt, our confusion, our anger, our misunderstanding. I've come to think of our fights as thunderstorms. Just as storms are a necessary part in Mother Nature's scheme of things, conflict is a part of any long-term intimate relationship. Having lived with you, and discovered that this only deepened the love I feel towards you, I knew that I felt ready to formalize this partnership through the act of marriage. I wanted the other important people in our lives to understand what we are to one another, and know of the depth of our bond and commitments to one another.

Woman One:
I have agonized for several months about what words to recite today in front of family and friends. I eventually figured out why it is so difficult for me to put my feelings for you into words. The love I feel for you comes from a very deep place within me. When I first discovered that I loved you it wasn't through thoughts that I came to know that. It was, for lack of better words, a peaceful knowingness that came over me. That is how the decision to marry you happened for me too. I didn't decide to marry you by making a list of all your good and bad qualities, and concluding you'd make a great partner for me. It was more like slowly coming to an awareness that living with you had brought a harmony and balance to my life that had never been there before. I felt a calm certainty that I wanted us to build our futures together. ______ you are a wonderful woman, full of spirit. I love how you approach life with boldness and abandon. I feel honored that you want to share your life with me. I am happy to call our community together today so that they may have an understanding and appreciation for the deep merging that has transpired between us. We would now like to do a reading by a feminist theologian named Beverly Wildung Harrison: