A Wedding Toast

Today my best friend marries my other best friend.

After two decades, and more miles than a fleet of beater cars.

After homes shared, and pets loved and lost, and career changes, and health challenges, and everything else that a loving couple celebrates and endures.

After twenty birthdays each, and twenty Christmases with family, and twenty seasons with the Seattle Men's Chorus (for him) and twenty bracing winter seasons, his favorite (for the other him).

Guys, it's about damn time!

Don't get me wrong. I know you would have tied the knot long, long ago if you had been allowed to do so. I'm not critiquing you -- I'm critiquing the way it took the rest of the country to catch up with you. As with any other major shift in consciousness, this whole marriage equality thing has dawned slowly and in stages: First we gay guys were a feared Other, then we were the Witty and Amusing sidekicks, then we were Fashion Mavens...

But all of that is behind us now, along with Proposition 8 and the worst part of DOMA (the next to worst part is still hanging in there, but hey, little by little. Sexual apartheid is on the way out.) Now we are just like everyone else... well, not quite, but we're getting there. We didn't choose to be gay, but we have the right, in twelve states and counting, to make the big choices that do fall under our purview, and take the essential risks as anyone else, and do it officially -- with all privileges, responsibilities, benefits, and penalties appertaining thereto.

Now is a time of new beginnings. Now is a time we celebrate newly won freedoms while still remembering who we are and where we have been. (Read between the lines, fellas: Today's date does not supersede your old anniversary. You're gonna have to double down on the annual flowers and candle lit dinners allotment, because trust me... being two men? That doesn't save you from the duty of remembering and celebrating The Anniversary... or, in the happy case of us gay families long denied legal marriage, The Anniversaries, plural. Get out your smart phones right now... seriously, right this moment... and get it into your calendar with repeating alerts starting two weeks in advance. Having given you due warning and words of wisdom, I refuse to accept your tearful, drunken collect calls at 3 a.m. when he sends you packing to the sofa some Original Anniversary Day because you were thinking you were all set with the New Anniversary Day. Oh no, no, guys. That ain't how the clock ticks. We add to the calendar, but we don't subtract. Think of it as the Life Experience equivalent of age lines. But trust me, these psychic age lines will do what age lines always do: Add character.)

Ahem, as I was saying...

Well, really, there's only one thing I meant to say on this most blessed occasion. To each of you in turn, albeit at the same time, I say this: That's my best friend you're marrying today. I know you will love him, cherish him, support and nurture him, and even if you don't always understand him you'll nod and smile with a slightly frozen, but completely attentive expression, even though you might be contemplating box scores, because that's what husbands do.

I know you will greet him every morning with a tender kiss (even when he really needs to brush his teeth), send him to work with a thermos of coffee and a peck on the cheek, text him sweet nothings along with the shopping list, cook him tasty meals (and keep a ready supply of antacids on hand, just in case), rub his feet as he starts to get drowsy in his armchair and drool the tiniest bit, and send him to his sweet dreams by holding him close until, stifling, he kicks you in the shin and hurls the blankets off. You'll soothe his troubled sleep when nightmares descend (or put a pillow over his face when he starts talking dirty to someone named Jerry). And as the rosy light of dawn creeps into the room, you'll smile because you get to do it all again.

I know you will do all this because that's the kind of guy you are: True, honorable, decent, sweet, and loving. And also... well, let's just say, you break-a his heart, I break-a you face. (Okay, let me qualify that. Depending on whose heart might ever get broken, I'll get my cousin's friend's cousin Big Lou to break-a you face for me, because one of you happy grooms... and I'm not naming names here... one of you has pretty big biceps. Am I gonna tangle with ya? No siree, Bob. And the other one of you isn't scrawny, but I know to distract you in a fight, so don't test me.)

Seriously, though: You're my best friend, and you always will be... but he is yours. He is your touchstone, your anchor, your compass. He is your sea and your stars. You never needed a piece of paper to prove what's in your hearts, but it sure doesn't hurt (and neither do the tax breaks). This day will grace you both with something indefinable, something subtle but definite, something profound and powerful and primal. The moment he slips that ring on your finger, you'll feel the difference. From this day on, you will have something that will make you just a little more whole, a little more fulfilled, a little more complete. You will be married men -- married to each other.

I couldn't be happier or more thrilled at this moment, to see you, man and man... to see you, husband and husband... married. I so proud of you both I'm fixin' to burst (but I won't, because this is my brand new tux that I got from Men's Wearhouse when they had their "Two for One" sale). May your portion be deep and lasting joy, and may you never again feel desolate or denied. (You can feel a little melancholy, though, especially in October. That's okay.)

In short, fellas, here's to you. And to you. May you celebrate this day (and the other one, too, don't forget!) for many, many years to come.

Now where's the damned champagne?