https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/1461/archive/files/2edc49aef370af19da1548d09f339451.png?Expires=1784764800&Signature=l-bAMPgan9moNnoUHgYWWsluwZmP%7EFHoP3%7EAS7zoezEWQM-6YzezgBgde0vMYAlaw8hyJpzFEhR%7Eh5duh8WwSiFoy25zeX10bWSLST-QB6GF83O0GjJX7Q5R1nYaSzBr7HbPD0VTjAoHlfOvWJ5oDYnvsNyVHN7knc2kIk0LKEU2D3P4Ot6HYlaXOiqdEoYPsmGMM6zyyD8zi9E1DSG0wKjNg8vGjHLF%7E0QAV6T8bmo-asP3xJs7DISdCGae2DKCnd7MFUylgANzMH2RwS9ZMY6v5yXL8gup2Cso0R37MT6Gh5xEDQb8NTg8o5DQ6DVWshS3ZO2sNkEHILmq5haU3Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM dac8b24520ad44b8f5b447470b51affa https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/1461/archive/files/a95641b203924701dbb612bf0f09f0a6.pdf?Expires=1784764800&Signature=FiRvk1guuuMPGTfoFVE6cQ7mOgAO56d3TSHn12%7EAurAzN8TdcP9hV2huQ4niZ9nqW5XTn6Qd7EBfF-pVOYdIbwSpAcUnwEpZCbfsmXUOwFng71OmMxx41VWmi6RyB7OhgWTsSootk75k42eXP2lvKmW4hFNFZYOIfhuNwIGGcWZfvKI6gsyGSpDexUNHsyKxYSRNvZw1JfCKfrNgi4YOcFLlSP67QD98TCS87RINuRB2%7EyDYCWM0FBTqSNXYMxHYH7t3sQhuNZxyzJLi4nQwjsMZOXj40SdDhSQoJ4FV9ghHcGAnyGlOHJj4M9WyXDpmeMRs-r6Phxx-zF2Q0LA70Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 6e41c6cd6a55138506f3fb23a31bf102 PDF Text Text MINISTER: Dear Friends…Welcome! We gather here today to witness and share in the celebration of marriage between Roberta and Amy. Their public declaration of love…a love and commitment that already exist between them…is neither a beginning nor an end but rather a momentary pause…before continuing…changing and growing over the months and years that lie ahead. This is a special moment…A time for reflections…and commitment…A time for Love…A time which Amy and Roberta have invited us to share with them because they deeply appreciate this special community of loved ones…People who know them best…and love them most. Marriage…is the most intimate of human relationships…and into this closest of relationships Roberta and Amy come now to be united. Amy and Roberta…It is a great joy and pleasure for me to be standing before you sharing in the celebration of your marriage…and witnessing the pledge of commitment you are wholeheartedly making today. Roberta: Amy and I met at the Gay Community News in 1978—26 years ago. We met as comrades in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights and our friendship and subsequent intimate relationship mirrors that history. As a lesbian activist moving to Boston from New York, I found my home at GCN and formed some of 1 �the most important relationships that I would develop in my adult life. In the sixties we used to say, “The personal is political,” and I think we can all see today that simply living out the details of our personal lives, day to day, has moved mountains and changed our world. Amy and I had shared goals, shared experiences and shared friends. When we first met we briefly flirted with the notion of dating. But I think we weren’t ready to be truly seen in one another’s eyes. It took 10 years of friendship, political work, other relationships, and the frightening loss of good friends to AIDS to truly understand the depth of sympathy between us. So we are marrying in the exact opposite order that most folks do: a long friendship, a deep knowledge of one another, a steamy romance, a rich and fulfilling relationship, four purchased homes, countless family bar mitzvahs, celebrations, and funerals, uplifting support through illness and the death of loved ones. And now the wedding. I think it is the exact right order. My lover Amy is full of contradictions. She is brilliant and talented but marvels when other similarly brilliant and talented people are drawn to her. She is warm and supportive but secretly worries that she is mean-spirited. She is beautiful and stylish but never thinks she looks good. Luckily for me, she doesn’t know when people are flirting with her. She is beloved by all but doesn’t think anyone likes her. The most attractive thing about Amy is the utter transparency of her inner beauty in spite of her own modest instincts. Amy, you are my friend, lover, and partner in life. You share my history and my hopes. I share joyful times with you and I am not alone in grief. You 2 �celebrate my accomplishments and help me through my disappointments. You have cared for me in sickness and have savored life with me in health. We have been family to each other for ages it seems, and no legal documents will change these facts or make them any more real. Now that the door has opened for us to be married under the law, we gladly walk through it and insure with our love and commitment that it stays open for all those others who love and live in unconventional ways. Amy: When I was a teenager I didn’t know if I’d ever find love in my life. I was an anamoly in my high school, and my teachers and fellow students didn’t quite know what to make of me—I read a lot, I was Jewish, I already had strong opinions about what was going on in the world around me. I was very shy. I thought I might find friends and a soul-mate when I went to college, but there too it was difficult for me to find a place for myself—although I don’t want to make it sound entirely bleak. I made a few close friends, especially once I began exploring feminism and taking women’s studies classes, but it wasn’t until later, when I came out as a lesbian and became active in the Boston and Cambridge feminist community and then began working at Gay Community News that I fell in with a crowd of charismatic, eccentric, politically committed, interesting, beautiful people, many of whom are here today, and all of whom I count it among the great pieces of luck in my life to know. I met Roberta Stone when I was 26. I was features editor at GCN and Roberta was our board president, after having served a stint as business 3 �manager because she was one of the few people who walked into the office who knew how to balance her checkbook. In fact, Roberta’s life-experience and attitude at that time were a little intimidating to me. She was coming out of a long term relationship in which she and her lover had brought up their young son; now she seemed to have many friends and girlfriends and, I noticed when I ran into her at the Saints, our local lesbian bar, she was a great dancer. She was smart and funny and very direct. Do not ask Roberta a question, I learned, if you do not want to know the answer. To my surprise, she and I became friends. In fact, for many years, Roberta, Richard Burns, Bob Andrews, and I had dinner together once a month. Bob, who was Roberta’s closest friend, died of AIDS in March 1988. His suffering had drawn Roberta and me closer together, as we both tried to help him through his last illness. That August, Roberta and I took a memorable vacation together in Provincetown. Even though we are getting married today, we will always count our anniversary from August 31, 1988, the day at the end of that vacation when we realized we were drawn to each other in a deeper way than simple friendship, and we became lovers. There’s a picture of us, snapped by Urvashi on the beach that weekend, in which we’re both simply beaming—glad to be in each other’s presence. Even now, we still feel that way. Every day in our house we laugh together. We kiss and hug each other, and every night in bed we hold and cherish each other. Of course, after living together for 15 years, we’re well aware of one another’s faults—it bugs Roberta that I leave my breakfast dishes in the sink when I rush 4 �off to work; it drives me crazy that she simultaneously holds a conversation with me and fills in the New York Times crossword puzzle. When Bob was sick, Roberta would shave him. This is what the support of Roberta is like—utterly competent, practical, physical, and sensitive to the details essential to dignity and comfort. When I have to give a book reading and am flying off in every direction, she makes sure there’s water for me at the podium. When I went to give a reading from Hospital Time at the Borders bookstore in the Braintree Mall and not one person showed up, she offered to whip up flyers to hang all over the store that said, “As Seen on Oprah,” which she thought would draw the crowd I deserved. She seems to have a boundless reserve of tolerance and love with which to counter my self-doubt. This is a moment neither of us—and probably none of you—ever expected to come in our lifetimes, so we find ourselves standing before you a little shocked, a little bewildered, a little scared. Yet underneath it all we feel deeply aware of our love for each other and of how it has grown and changed from the time that we first met, 26 years ago, and later pledged our hearts to each other, over 16 years ago. Roberta: Unlike a new couple taking marriage vows for the first time, we have already experienced many joys in our life together. We have also faced difficulties like death, illness, and the petty obstacles of daily life together. Getting legally married won’t change the bond between us. 5 �Amy: But, it will change the public face of our relationship. Before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last winter that marriage between same-sex couples was legal in our commonwealth, we had assumed that ours would always be a private relationship with no official existence. On everything from our medical records, tax forms, mortgages, and passports to our drugstore discount cards, we appeared to be two single women. Now the court has taken a step toward recognizing our relationship’s dignity and value, and in doing so brought us a little closer to a society in which everyone’s full humanity will be honored and respected. Roberta: We are grateful for the affirmation and love each of you has shown us, and that has brought you all the way to Provincetown today. When we first sent out our invitations, we didn’t know if anyone would want to make the trek. But a gay relationship, perhaps even more than a heterosexual one, unfolds in community, and at this moment of change and commitment, we are deeply moved and joyful to have our families with us—both gay and straight. Amy: In our marriage, as before, we will continue to be one another’s best friend, lover, teacher, listener, confidante, and critic. We will love and cherish one another and share our lives. 6 �VOWS: MINISTER: Amy and Roberta, the vows you are about to exchange are a verbal representation of your love. But it is not the formulas that you will speak that will bind you together but the love and commitment that each of you feels for the other in her heart. As you go forward together, you promise to give your spouse the best of yourself. You promise to respect yourself and your spouse and to learn about her interests, desires, and needs. You promise to share your time and attention and to bring into your relationship all the joy, strength, and imagination of which you are capable. You promise to stay open to your spouse, letting her see and feel your innermost emotions, secrets, dreams, and fears. You promise to continue to grow together and face changes together. 7 �You promise to love each other in good times and bad, with all that you have to give. Amy and Roberta respond: I do. I now ask that Amy repeat after me: I call on those present to witness that I, Amy, take you, Roberta, to be my lawful wedded spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward, in whatever circumstance or experience life may bring to either of us. Amy: I call on those present to witness that I, Amy, take you, Roberta, to be my lawful wedded spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward, in whatever circumstance or experience life may bring to either of us. MINISTER: And I ask that Roberta repeat after me: I call on those present to witness that I, Roberta, take you, Amy, to be my lawful wedded spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward, in whatever circumstance or experience life may bring to either of us. 8 �Roberta: I call on those present to witness that I, Roberta, take you, Amy, to be my lawful wedded spouse, to have and to hold, from this day forward, in whatever circumstance or experience life may bring to either of us. MINISTER: Amy and Roberta will now read their personal vows to each other. Roberta: Today, I join my life to yours. From this day on, I will be your partner and companion, for you are my dearest love and best friend. Amy: I look forward to the joy we will find in each other’s separate successes as well as our shared ones. I welcome the challenge of whatever obstacles we encounter, for I know that whatever we face, we face it together. Roberta: Because your happiness is vital to me, I will help you grow as an individual. Amy: Because you deserve no less than the best of me, I will also strive to be more fully myself. Roberta: I pledge that I will listen to you when you speak, encourage you in times of doubt, comfort you in times of sorrow, and be your refuge of strength in times of uncertainty. 9 �Amy: I will be faithful to you all my days, will be honest with you always, and will cherish and adore you every moment of my life. Roberta: I will be faithful to you all my days, will be honest with you always, and will cherish and adore you every moment of my life. Amy: As it says in the Song of Songs, Matzati et she’ahava nafshi—I have found the love of my soul. Roberta: And as it says in the Song of Songs, Ani li dodi vi dodi li, I am my lover’s and my lover is mine. MINISTER: Weddings are traditionally public occasions where family and friends gather to express their joy and approval of the new union. Let me therefore ask Amy’s parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and machotonim [in-laws] and Roberta’s sister, brother, brother-in-law, and nephew to stand now and pledge: Do you who love these two give them your blessings now as they enter into this new stage of their relationship, and do you pledge in the days and years ahead to give them your love, understanding, and support during good times and bad? If so, please say together, “We do.” 10 �And let me ask you, Amy and Roberta’s dearest lifelong and new friends, who have become a true family to them, to stand now and pledge: Do you who love these two give them your blessings now as they enter into this new stage of their relationship, and do you pledge in the days and years ahead to give them your love, understanding, and support during good times and bad? If so, please say together, “We do.” The ring is a circle, with no beginning or end. It symbolizes your love for one another. I ask now that the rings be presented. Amy and Roberta first exchanged these rings on their 10th anniversary. Amy, take this ring, and as you place the ring on Roberta’s finger, please repeat after me: I give you this ring as a sign of my love and commitment. Amy: I give you this ring as a sign of my love and commitment. MINISTER: Roberta, take this ring, and as you place the ring on Amy’s finger, please repeat after me: I give you this ring as a sign of my love and commitment. Roberta: I give you this ring as a sign of my love and commitment. 11 �MINISTER: Now, inasmuch as you, Amy and Roberta, have consented in wedlock and have declared your solemn intention in this company, before these witnesses, and in my presence, and have exchanged rings as a pledge of your love to each other, may you enjoy length of days, fulfillment of hopes, peace and contentment of mind as you live and fulfill the terms of the covenant you have made with one another. So, therefore by the authority vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you married spouses. You may kiss to seal your marriage. MINISTER reads “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” by Walt Whitman: Shine! Shine! Shine! Pour down your warmth, great sun! While we bask—we two together. Two together! Winds blow south, or winds blow north, Days come white, or nights come black, Home, or rivers and mountains from home, Singing all time, minding no time, While we two keep together. [“outro” music: “Love and Happiness” by Al Green] 12 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Marriage Equality Collection Description An account of the resource The story of marriage equality in Massachusetts is often shared through a legal perspective: the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health case, the work of legal and advocacy groups, and the relationships of the seven plaintiff couples. While this perspective is crucial to understanding marriage equality as a whole, countless personal stories of LGBTQ+ love and joy from the past 20 years have not been documented. To address this historical gap, The History Project is launching The Marriage Equality Collection, a digital collecting initiative that enables community members to submit their own wedding stories, their photographs, invitations, vows, and other materials. Submissions will be preserved and shared in The History Project’s digital archives for future generations. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Amy & Roberta's Wedding, November 2004 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-11 Description An account of the resource Roberta and I got married at Fanizzi’s restaurant in Provincetown over Thanksgiving weekend in 2004. It had always been my dream to have a party with both friends (queer family) and biological family, and that came true at our wedding. My family is huge—I have 5 siblings—and originally I didn’t think they would all accept the invitation—but the entire family showed up: my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews; as well as many old friends and Roberta’s brother and sister. Although we’re both Jewish we were married by a UU minister who agreed to let us plan our wedding any way we wanted to. I’m attaching our script for the ceremony. I’m also attaching a photo. These days, this particular photo feels terribly poignant, because three of our long-time friends in it have since died: Eric Rofes, Crispin Hollings, and Urvashi Vaid. Photograph: (left to right, back row) Richard Burns, Eric Rofes, Crispin Hollings. (left to right, front row) Kate Clinton, Amy Hoffman, Urvashi Vaid, Will Seng, Roberta Stone. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hoffman, Amy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hoffman, Amy Subject The topic of the resource Burns, Richard; Rofes, Eric; Hollings, Crispin; Clinton, Kate; Hoffman, Amy; Vaid, Urvashi; Seng, Will; Stone, Roberta Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Digital content made available by The History Project on DOCUMENTED is intended for personal research and educational purposes. Commercial use or distribution of this content is not permitted without prior permission of the copyright holder. The History Project holds copyright to select content made available in DOCUMENTED. Copyright to other content may be held by authors, artists, or their heirs, or may be in the public domain. Requests to reproduce, distribute, or publish content in The History Project should be sent to info@historyproject.org. Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context THP-marriage-project-0007-0001