I’m going there

Not very long ago, a dear friend of 12 years asked if I would photograph her wedding. She said, “I understand if you don’t want to do it. If it would be bad for your business.”

Her words “bad for your business” made me feel so sad. Can you imagine feeling like a photograph of you on your wedding day might harm someone’s business? It wasn’t until that conversation that I thought about the kind of discrimination she must feel all of the time. She was there for me at my wedding. She came to see me when I was pregnant. We celebrate good news together. Why wouldn’t I be there for her in any other way but 100% at her wedding? Is her love any less important? Does it mean less because she loves a woman? I can’t imagine.

I keep a lot of opinions to myself on this blog. The off-limits blogging list is pretty long. There are about 70 hours of my week that I don’t blog about. Ever. And I’m careful about touching the political third rails here as I know I have readers {and I’m thankful for each of them} who are of various faiths, political parties and citizenship.

But as an attorney/wedding photographer, I am in a good position to comment on the right to marry. I understand constitutional law, I’ve worked in the domestic court and I spend a good bit of time in the wedding industry. I am perplexed that the gay marriage debate is still a debate at all. The legalities of marriage have little to do with what works or doesn’t work in marriage, what needs protecting and what can never be protected in marriage.

There is nothing sacred about marriage that emanates from the license. In fact, the legalities and divisions and rights from the license are often where things creep in that are far from sacred. It’s the commitment that means something and that is most challenging.

My greatest challenge in life is to love people as Christ would. That’s easier to do with your children. With people who loved you as a child. With people you don’t spend all of your time with. But to love, unconditionally, someone you spend your life with, shoulder to shoulder, is a giant undertaking.

It’s a challenge to love unconditionally, the way that God would, when you’ve been moving all day in the Georgia heat and it’s 2:00 a.m., and the trailer comes off the hitch and rolls toward the car; it’s a challenge to be patient and kind when you haven’t slept in months; when you are broke; when someone is vomiting; when the basement is flooding; when the heater breaks in the middle of the night; when it’s hard.

And life can be really, really hard.

I feel grateful that God loves me in those moments, when it’s hard to love myself, and I try to think about how to love this person I’ve signed up with in the way that God would. And it’s hard. God asks us to take care of each other. If someone decides to try to rise to the task and accept the challenge of caring for someone unconditionally, for as long as they can, there is no legal or biblical challenge that justifies doing anything other than saying all the best of luck. You’re going to need it. We all do.

All spiritual and legal issues aside, in an effort to appeal to the disinterested, I should add that there are endless financial benefits to leveling the playing field. The potential wedding market is big business, sure. But what about after the wedding, as we all age. There are more long term care facilities in this country than McDonalds. Think about that. And yet, the aging population is going to surpass availability. If there’s someone who can care for another, share benefits to do so, there is less burden on the community. And I could go on and on.

Supporting people who are willing to try to make a commitment, however risky, to try to love each other is always good, regardless of business.

{minute 1:38 is when this gets good if you want to forward}