A love story | Irwin Keller | TEDxSonomaCounty

Irwin Keller has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom, in Sonoma County, since 2008. His past work included LGBT and HIV advocacy, having authored Chicago’s first LGBT rights law and directing an AIDS legal services organization in San Francisco. He was also a founder and, for 21 years, a writer and performer in The Kinsey Sicks, known as “America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet.” Irwin’s poignant and humorous sermons and essays, speaking to issues of Judaism, queerness, disillusionment, hope and finding inspiration on the fringe, can be found on his Itzik’s Well blog, at irwinkeller.com.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Sometimes, the best way to overcome
a limit is to reach beyond it,

to grab hold of that reality
and draw it back into the present moment,

try it on,

see how it fits.

That’s what San Francisco mayor
Gavin Newsom did

on Valentine’s Day, 2004,

when, without any particular legal basis,

he announced that San Francisco
would begin issuing marriage licenses

to same-sex couples.

It was a grand gesture,
symbolic and photogenic.

Now, I had always been
mixed-emotioned about marriage.

Not having access to it
made it easy to be judgy about it,

“It’s old-fashioned. It’s sexist!”

My partner Oren and I
were on the same page about this.

We had registered as domestic partners

for its slim bundle
of coldly described rights,

but we had never had a ceremony.

That was too marriage-like,

and we did not want
to mimic an institution

that did not want to have us.

But the television coverage
was compelling.

(Laughter)

And so were our friends -

I mean, not compelling exactly -

desperate!

After two weeks of watching
same-sex octogenarian couples

standing in line in the rain,

eating damp wedding cakes
sent by out-of-state well-wishers -

a spectacle of love

that did more to change
public attitudes about gay people

than any campaign, litigation, legislation
or protest in American history -

our friends couldn’t stand it
one minute longer.

“You have to get married!
It’s a historic moment!” they said,

meaning, “I have to go to a gay wedding!
It’s a historic moment.”

(Laughter)

Slowly, our resistance
gave way to the romance of it.

We decided to do it.

I drove down to San Francisco City Hall.

By this time, there were
no more lines around the block;

instead, there was
a computerized appointment system.

I took a deep breath

and walked into the county clerk’s office.

“I’d like a spot
on the wedding docket, please.”

“Sorry, we’re all booked up.”

“All booked up?”

“Yep! Next six weeks, booked solid.”

“Hmm ...

What about beyond that?”

“Oh, wide open!”

“Well, great! I’ll take
one of those appointments.”

“Sorry, we can only make appointments
six weeks in advance.”

(Laughter)

“So I have to come here every day

to try to get an appointment
six weeks out?”

“Uh-huh.”

(Laughter)

“Can I do this by phone or online?”

“Sorry.”

I gave up; clearly,
the marrying life was not for me.

(Laughter)

I trudged a couple of blocks
to a restaurant called Ananda Fuara

to drown my sorrows
in garlic-free vegetarian food.

When I walked in, I saw
my lawyer friend Jeff with his boyfriend.

I told them how I’d been bested
by the bureaucracy,

then I sat down to order my lentil loaf.

As I was raking up the last dry crumbs,

(Laughter)

Jeff appeared at the table.

“Listen,” he said,

“We have a wedding
appointment for March 11,

but the law is so up in the air.

We’ve decided not to use it.

We’d like you to have it.”

“Did they mean it?”

I didn’t want them giving up
their shot at a wedding

just to do a good turn for me.

On the other hand,
maybe they weren’t ready to commit.

Maybe they had good reason for cold feet,

and I was giving them
an honorable way out.

“Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.”

And we were off.

We had less than two weeks
to pull this thing together.

It was impossible to get
Oren’s parents over from Israel,

or my sister from Japan.

But my mother bought a plane ticket.

We asked county supervisor
and former stand-up comedy Tom Ammiano

to officiate.

We told our friends to cancel their plans.

We organized hummus and cake
for our celebration afterwards.

We bought shirts.

(Laughter)

The day arrived.

Breathless, we showed up at City Hall
and met up with our entourage.

Jeff was there too in order to verify

that he was relinquishing
his appointment to us.

He and Oren and I took a deep breath,

and walked into the county clerk’s office.

"We are here to get married."

"You have an appointment?"

“I have an appointment,” said Jeff.

“And I’m giving it to them.”

“I’m giving it to them.”

“I’m sorry, wedding appointments
are not transferable.”

(Laughter)

"But that makes no sense.
There’s no fraud here.

He’s standing right here,
saying it’s okay,

and you already allotted
the time for his wedding!”

"Yeah, not transferable.”

“No, but you don’t understand.

My mother flew here from Chicago,

Tom Ammiano is waiting in the rotunda.

I have 31 people in the hall,

and flowers!”

I added flowers, pathetically,

as if somehow flowers
would tip the balance.

(Laughter)

“Not transferable ...”

“What’s going on here?”

It was Nancy Alfaro, the duly appointed
San Francisco county clerk.

“They don’t have an appointment.”

I repeated my whole litany,
including the flowers.

“Go stand over there,” she said,

pointing to a spot in the office

that we quickly came to understand
as the “problem couple pen.”

(Laughter)

We were not alone there.

There was another "problem couple,"

Nicole and Amita,

two young African American lesbians,

both deaf,

who had driven up
from Riverside to get married.

They had an appointment,

but they had not told City Hall
they would need an interpreter.

Hence, consignment to the pen.

We smiled at each other
and exchanged rudimentary pleasantries.

I should tell you
that as an undergraduate,

I had taken a semester
of American Sign Language.

And in the intervening quarter century,
I had never had cause to use it.

(Laughter)

But it was important to me
to stay in practice,

so I used to sign a little bit
to myself a song on the radio

or the newscast on TV.

And in the process, I had begun
to make up little signs ...

(Laughter)

for words that I didn’t know.

(Laughter)

I wasn’t signing
with any real deaf people,

so what was the harm?

(Laughter)

Except that over time,
I began to lose track …

(Laughter)

of what signs I had learned
and what I had invented.

And so,

when Nancy Alfaro would come over

with an update about her search
for an interpreter,

I would translate this to them
and then study their faces

to determine if what I had just given them
was information or gibberish.

(Laughter)

“You know how to sign?”
Nancy Alfaro asked.

“Oh, no. Just a little bit from college.”

“Can you sign their wedding?”

“Oh, no.”

“I need you to sign their wedding.”

“No, that would be a terrible mistake.”

(Laughter)

“Listen to me.

I cannot send them home
to Riverside today not married.

You must do this.”

I was about to object again,

but the wind was taken out of me
by Oren’s knuckle deep in my ribs.

“What about our wedding?” he asked.

“Your boyfriend signs theirs,
then you can have yours.”

(Laughter)

(Laughter)

Before I knew what was happening,
I was whisked to a wedding chapel

that could have only been designed
by a civil servant.

(Laughter)

Nicole and Amita didn’t bring
any friends with them,

so my buddy Emily,

a lawyer who had long been fighting
the marriage fight,

stepped up to be their witness
and to take pictures.

The officiant, some city functionary,
pressed into overtime matrimonial duty,

opened his script:

“We are gathered here
in the presence of these witnesses

to join in matrimony Nicole and Amita.

We are here with ... ” -

point to Emily, point to self -

“Unite in marriage you and you.”

(Laughter)

“The contract of marriage is most solemn.”

“Marriage is important,”

(Laughter)

“and is not to be entered into lightly.”

“Marriage is very important.”

(Laughter)

“But seriously and thoughtfully,

with the full realization
of its duties and obligations.”

(Laughter)

“Marriage is very, very important.”

(Laughter)

I spelled half the ceremony on my fingers.

I watched frequent
confusion on their faces

give way to looks of love
and joy between them.

I was embarrassed
about my ineloquent hands.

On the other hand, Nicole and Amita
did not need a lecture

on the significance of marriage.

Nobody getting married
in San Francisco that month did.

They kissed, we hugged them,

Emily and I raced up the stairs
to the rotunda balcony

where we found Tom Ammiano,
with Oren and our gang of people,

ready to begin.

“We are gathered here
in the presence of these witnesses

to join in matrimony Oren and Erwin,”

the same script as I heard downstairs,
that now I knew so well.

We ran through the canned vows,

and then we added words of our own,

Hebrew from the Book of Ruth.

(Hebrew)

“Where you go, I will go.”

(Hebrew)

“Where you lodge, I will lodge.”

(Hebrew)

“Your people will be my people;
and your God, my God.”

(Hebrew)

“And where you die, I will die,

and there I will be buried.”

We kissed, we ran downstairs
to submit our paperwork,

we waved goodbye to Nicole and Amita,

who were two and a half minutes
ahead of us in the wedding assembly line …

(Laughter)

We piled into the car

my mother, my cousin,

my husband, and I.

We turned on the radio
to hear the breaking news bulletin:

the California Supreme Court
had just halted the weddings.

We canceled our celebration
and went right to a protest march

down Market Street.

My mother held a sign
that someone handed her, saying:

“That’s my family.”

Oren and I carried sheets
of notebook paper

on which we’d scribbled “Married Today.”

A few months later,
all of the weddings were invalidated.

But in that time, something had happened.

We had reached beyond a limit,

a limit of law,

a limit of language.

We had grabbed that reality
and drawn it back into the present moment

and tried it on like a wedding tux,

or a bridal veil.

And we discovered
that we liked how it fits.

It took another four years

before there was a legal window
of opportunity for us to marry again,

and then another seven years

before the US Supreme Court
made it the law of the land

and we were able to exhale.

It always seems strange to me,

when people ask us
how long we’ve been married,

to say, “Nine years,”

when we’ve been “us” for 23.

But we will be the last generation
with this disparity,

with marriages that are icing

on an already fine and fully baked cake.

We are here,

united

in love.

Marriage

very, very …

(Laughter)

(American Sign Language) Important.

Thank you.

(Applause) (Cheering)