Getting Married at Land's End

Getting Married at Land's End

2021-03-01

My partner, Esther ("Terry") Carson Bremer, and I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s, hearing that gay people were either dreadfully sick or big sinners. We first became a couple in 1975. We lived joyfully because we had found each other, but our early years happened during the 1980s, a time of tremendous backlash against gay progress and the AIDS epidemic in which gay men were treated as pariahs. When marriage equality happened in Massachusetts in 2004, we had been together for almost 30 years. We resisted getting married for a couple of years. We were grateful that same-sex marriage was now legal, but I suppose we held onto some bitterness that probably began as we were growing up during a time when lesbians and gay men were not supposed to exist and some so-called pro-family groups advocated for the execution of gays. In the end, we realized that most of our families and friends had supported us and cheered us on. So, we had the wedding we wanted in the place we wanted, just the two of us, with the officiant. In the months after we married, two different groups of friends organized wedding receptions for us. We were touched to tears. People of good will and kindness far outnumber the ones who mock and hate.

Written when the contributor was taking a memoir-writing workshop.

Hewitt, Linda Vanessa

Bremer, Esther Carson; Hewitt, Linda Vanessa

Hewitt, Linda Vanessa

The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ Boston

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