By 
It is an interesting time for me, a lesbian Christian and a married New Yorker, to prepare for my ordination. I have been serving in the ministry at The Potter’s House Church of the Living God in Brooklyn for many years: I sing, lead praise and worship, play the organ, lead the choir, maintain the website, and most recently teach the studio. of the Bible and preaching. It may seem like a lot, but it doesn’t feel like it when you’re doing what you love. What I still have to do is perform a wedding ceremony. But it sounds like that may be an important part of my job description, since gay marriage became legal in New York around the time my ordination was about to become official.
I grew up in a church where women were rarely allowed in the pulpit, let alone preach. We were wearing long skirts, long hair, no makeup, no pants, and no open-toe shoes. I had no idea then that she was a lesbian. I had no idea then that she had some kind of sexual identity because premarital sex was a one-way ticket to hell. Then, when she was a child and a virgin, sex was an ever-lurking evil monster, wielding a weapon of unbridled passion capable of corrupting and killing all hope of divine favor with a momentary thrill. So I avoided it like the plague. And I found it quite easy to do so since my latent lesbianism made it quite easy for me to find the advances of men unpleasant. Older men wanted to marry me (they thought I was 30 when I was 15 – that’s what long skirts and no makeup will do for you). But he was determined to play by the rules. So I waited for that “special man” to arrive for whom I would cook, clean, and birth a kid-worthy basketball team.
Well, I finally got married. to a woman she was 18 years old when I met her sixteen years ago. We were the last two women in a lesbian club that I had snuck into to explore my potential for “unnatural affections.” I had already left the church at that time but I had not left my God. For some reason, despite all my so-called “ungodly efforts,” the same God who spoke through me in tongues of angels, eased all my teenage angst, and sustained me “before I came out,” continued to do all of those things. “after coming out of the closet”. .” So I followed my God and my heart and married the woman who is now my partner in ministry and life. First we were married in my church, then again in 2010 in DC so we could take pictures outside of the White House showing our certificate and making the case for federally legalized same-sex marriage. Will we get married a third time in New York now that it’s legal in our home state? I don’t know yet. But if I can get another ring from the deal, I’ll most likely make sure it happens.
Meanwhile, there are other marriages to be performed; other functions to perform. In a culture that is alternately fed up with the concept of God, frustrated with the inability of the Christian faith to live up to its own ideals, or disgusted with the critical attitudes of followers of the faith, Step I to do the work of a servant . Claiming to be called by God and possessing gifts that will undoubtedly help give meaning to one’s life and God’s role in it, I assume a mantle handed down for more than 2000 years. As a minister “of legal age” in the era of state-legalized gay marriage, I am grateful for the work of the outspoken and affirming clergy who preceded me and made this victory possible. Still, I hope one day I won’t be considered a “lesbian minister” who can perform “gay marriages.” I pray that I am a qualified child of God to help solemnize that special moment when two become one and life becomes even richer as a result.
But until then, one of the most important things I can do to help make our marriages more valid is to help ensure that our marriages last. My biggest fear is that the rush to church and town hall will be followed too quickly by the rush to divorce court. Many conservatives expressed fear that our marriages would somehow destroy the sanctity of the ceremony. My hope is that each vote made by LGBT couples in New York puts another nail in the coffin of that myth. I want our marriages to be examples of love and commitment, thoughtful pacts between mortals and the divine. Because God knows that “it is not good for man to be alone.”
So allow this newly appointed minister who married the same person twice and has stayed married to her for nearly a decade to offer some quick advice to those about to take the marriage plunge:
You should not marry until you are sure that you can live with all the characteristics of your partner that you know you cannot change. If you can’t learn to love those things, you are not loving the whole person.
Make sure you and your partner don’t stumble over the baggage of your past. Consult your religious leaders and get advice.
Don’t look for someone who loves you if you haven’t learned to love yourself yet; you may attract an abuser.
Make sure you both understand what you want out of the relationship and where you want it to go. If you want five kids and your partner doesn’t want any, that’s going to be a big problem!
Finally, you deserve the best, and the best is out there. Don’t settle for less.
Commitment is something our God takes very seriously. He never left me, even when I switched from long skirts to pants and from the pew to pulpit ministry. When you give your life to Christ, you commit yourself to Him in a relationship that lasts for eternity. God does not expect his children to marry someone on a whim and then leave them. The two become “one flesh.” “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” The world is watching, so let’s get it right!