Key Words of Inclusion

"How do you know Shannon?" the unknown woman asked my girlfriend.

I had left Emily sitting alone at the dining table at Shannon and Emmanuel's wedding reception. I had been gone for about 10 minutes talking to a woman I knew named Betty. Betty saw me at the reception and called me over to her table. I know Betty from work I did with youth in her rural town of Hoopeston, Illinois, population 6,000. Shannon was our mutual connection.

I was happy to see Betty. She looked very relaxed. She had retired from her job as head of a social service agency and was now working for a chiropractor. She loved it. She didn't take it home at night. After about 10 minutes of chatting, I was wondering how Emily was doing on her own and politley excused myself.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

Emily told me that she had been chatting with Connie and her husband. Connie reached out to Emily while she was sitting by herself. "How do you know Shannon?" she asked.

Emily told the truth. "My partner knows her. She worked with her." That sentence, "My partner knows her. She..." were the first words of inclusion that day. A conscious choice. It always seems to be a conscious choice. A decision point. Do I reveal or don't I? I find the choice in these kinds of situations stressful.

Earlier in the day at the wedding reception, Emily and I were quite aware that we were the only obvious and openly same-sex couple. We sat close in the pews, held hands, and allowed ourselves to be moved by the love between Shannon and Emmanual.

Once we were in the car, we talked about the stress of being ourselves in an unknown environment. And in the car, the thought occurred to me that at the reception someone would reach out to us because we were being ourselves. I just had the feeling.

Connie was the first to do so. And then it was Betty. When Betty, Emily and I were in the buffet line together, Betty turned to Emily and asked us, "Are you in Amasong?" Another key work of inclusion: Amasong.. Amasong is Champaign-Urbana's premier lesbian-feminist chorus. If Betty knew what the chorus was, I thought, she must be reaching out by asking us this question. I introduced Emily to Betty as my partner.

And the Presbytarian minister from Betty's church was quite friendly, too, and chatted us up for quite some time.

Accepting the wedding invitation from Shannon was another stress point. I didn't know how Shannon feels about same-sex couples. I never heard her say anything prejudiced and yet I had not come out to her. She, a blonde, light-skinned woman was marrying a deep black-skinned man from Ghana, which was uncommon in itself, and yet they had met through a Christian on-line dating service. But I'm a Christian, too! Emily wasn't in my life when Shannon and I were working together in Hoopeston. I was single then, too. It never came up.

When I received the wedding invitation and tried to accept it on-line, the form only let me register my acceptance. "Can't I bring someone with me?" I thought. I emailed Shannon and asked if the invite was for me only or if I could bring my girlfriend, Emily. Shannon said there was an error in the on-line acceptance form and that others were only able to register their acceptances, too, and yes of course I should bring Emily and she was looking forward to meeting her.

Emily's and my honesty and our willingness to be ourselves gave others the chance to interact with us as we really are and challenged our own reservations about what others might think of us as we really are.

It's still a lot of work and energy.

It's worth it.

As for marriage: Marriage is so gay.